We've mentioned software piracy a couple of times lately, but a new survey by the Business Software Alliance took me by surprise a little:
The BSA today published the results of its 2004 Global Piracy Study conducted by IDC, which reveals a software piracy rate in the UK of 27%, down two percentage points from 29% in 2003.
It doesn't surprise me that people in their homes are using pirated software (or, more likely, using unlicensed copies on multiple machines), but I expected that the business market - which this survey looked at - would be lower.
Britain isn't as bad as Germany (29%) or France (45%!), but still more than a quarter of all software being used by businesses is pirated, counterfeit or unlicensed.
I just spoke with Mike Newton, BSA spokesman in the UK, who told me that the BSA are "looking to the Labour government to honour its pledge to protect our intellectual property. They recognise that the economy is going to be increasingly focused on IP, and unless we protect our own intellectual property, how can we expect other countries to respect IP coming out of the UK?"
Are we simply unable to conceive of virtual goods in the same way as physical ones? Does it indicate that we should embrace open source ideals? What is the real problem here that drives people to use pirated software?
