From "Wealth of Ideas" e-newsletter, March 2004

There is something about the nature of information that compels ordinary, honest, law-abiding citizens to copy magazine articles and technical journals, and duplicate computer software without seeking permission from their copyright holders.

If you recognize yourself in this category of office scoundrel, avast, there are organizations searching the seven seas for you.

Copyright infringement most commonly occurs in the office. The piracy of business software alone costs US companies more than $12 billion a year, according to estimates from the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry.

The Business Software Alliance, another industry organization dedicated to promoting a safe and legal digital world, reports that thirty-nine percent of the world’s software is pirated, costing America about 118,000 jobs, $5.7 billion in wages, and $1.5 billion in taxes annually.

Defined as the unauthorized reproduction, use and/or distribution of software, piracy affects large companies like Microsoft as well as small independent shareware developers whose livelihoods are tremendously diminished by this growing problem.

The Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. is the largest licenser of text reproduction rights in the world, and offers an easy way to license their clients’ work. The company currently manages rights relating to over 1.75 million works and represents more than 9,600 publishers and hundreds of thousands of authors and other creators, directly or through their representatives.

The Copyright Clearance Center, SIIA and BSA will take action against those who make unauthorized copies of proprietary materials. And the fines are stiff. In 2003, California firms Youbet.com and Innovative Merchant Solutions paid $228,000 and $90,000 respectively for the unauthorized installation of software. And if you think there's no way they can find you, think again -- most of the firms who do get caught are ratted out by their own disgruntled employees or ex-employees.

So although it's tempting to try getting away with piracy, consider the risks involved – and the fact that licensing revenues help authors, publishers and software companies to continue producing those works that we all enjoy.