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 wont stop online piracy.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 dont care about.

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.