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Stop Online Piracy Act
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) currently being discussed in Congress has been much maligned with claims from many sources that the bill essentially amounts to online censorship and has too much room for abuse. V.i. Labs believes it simply won’t stop online piracy.
PROTECT IP Act
The Senate has approved its own “Protect-IP” legislation as the “counterpart to SOPA. Various digital rights activists and bloggers fear the bill's provisions would restrict free speech.
The Whistleblower Process
Relying on whistleblowers within the organization to uncover software piracy is an "imperfect process." Most whistleblowers are bitter former employees with axes to grind.
The Business Software Alliance’s Bounty Program
The BSA pays bounties for information regarding piracy, such as a sweepstakes where whistleblowers are eligible to win $1,000. This is bound to bring about false accusations from people who are only motivated by financial gain.
Employee Apathy
A recent software piracy report found that two thirds of U.K. workers turn a blind eye to their employers’ use of pirated software. While whistleblowing is not an effective method of uncovering software piracy use, employees should still encourage their bosses to move towards legitimate copies of software.
Misguided Employee Loyalty
Some employees willingly use pirated software because they think it benefits their companies or helps “cut costs,” even if the company has an anti-piracy policy. Using pirated software exposes the company to malware and unwanted liability for unlicensed use.
China
Companies that operate in China and other locales where software piracy laws are not strongly enforced steal an estimated $1.6 billion from their in-market competitors, Microsoft found in a recent report.Governments need to strengthen their anti-software piracy laws so that all companies that operate within their borders are on the same even playing field.
Vendors Ignoring the Problem
All the software vendors who stick their head in the sand and ignore their own software piracy issues are losing revenue that they cannot even quantify. They are creating an unlevel playing field for their customers and giving the appearance that the use of pirated software is a commonplace and therefore acceptable practice that even some software vendors apparently don’t care about.
Piracy Still Considered Not a Big Deal
The other side of the token for misguided employees is the organization that doesn't clearly articulate an anti-piracy policy. If the employers aren't keeping track of their licenses and the software being used, employees won't think it's a big deal when someone uses pirated software.
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Software piracy is a problem for software vendors, companies buying the software and users. Using pirated software can expose the organization to dangerous malware that often piggybacks on the applications to compromise computers and spread over the network. There have been a number of attempts to try to stop online piracy, such as Microsoft's Windows Geniune Advantage, which determines whether the copy of Windows installed on a computer is authentic. Congress is trying control the problem of pirate software with legislation such as the “Stop Online Piracy Act” currently being reviewed in a House committee. The Senate has already voted to enact “Protect IP Act.” "Trying to stop piracy by adding new tools to disable access to the piracy channels is a futile strategy for most software vendors," Vic DeMarines, vice president of Product Strategy at V.i. Labs, told eWEEK. These types of tactics would just create "new methods and approaches" for sharing pirated content, such as cyber-locker service providers, DeMarines said. Software vendors should track the adoption of unlicensed software, much in the same way they track licensed versions, and implement software amnesty programs. These compliance programs would allow organizations to self-report their transgressions and move toward legitimate software. Below are some ideas intended to stop online piracy that just won't work.