Piracy, according to The Business Software Alliance and the Software Publishers Association, is costing U.S. software publishers $11.4 billion dollars worldwide in lost revenue. Worldwide, the BSA and SPA said they found that almost half of all newly installed business programs were pirated -- in North America, that works out to about one-quarter of all titles (or US$2.8 billion dollars in lost revenue), while in China, an estimated 96 percent of all software is illegally copied.
While some of these "lost revenue" numbers are debatable -- who knows how many people would use a program if it wasn't "free"? -- there is no doubt that software piracy is rampant.
Warez, as pirated titles are commonly known are, are readily accessible in many forms: on CDs, both home-recorded and mass-produced, on the Internet, and via exclusive private bulletin board systems (BBSes).
And the activity isn't limited to the late-night exploits of teenagers trading warez as they might exchange trading cards. We've seen mass-produced compact discs from China with color sleeves and official-looking graphics that demonstrate the production quality of illegally copied software titles to be surprisingly high. Indeed, the fact that copies of Microsoft products sometimes go so far as to duplicate the holograms, manuals and packaging proves that piracy in the Far East is big business.
Apparently, it's also pretty big in Canada. In fact, Frank Clegg, the president of Microsoft Canada, recently told PC Buyer's Guide that he believes that organized crime is behind the bulk of counterfeited software in Canada. It's safe to surmise that Microsoft's products are among the most widely pirated -- a fact that undoubtedly has contributed to the company's decision to copy protect its forthcoming versions of Office XP, Windows XP and Video, using a system called Windows Product Activation (WPA). Of course, nobody expects it to eliminate piracy of Microsoft products completely. Practically speaking, the company is likely to look at it as a way of reducing "casual" copying, where several people chip in and "share" a single copy around an office, or install the same program or operating system on two or three machines in their homes.
Hackers, meanwhile, take it as a special challenge to break the copy protection on a particularly tough piece of code, or removing hardware checks for even the most sophisticated dongles (hardware keys), with programmable logic arrays and other state-of-the-art piracy deterrents. And the crackers almost always succeed, sooner or later.
On the Net, too, warez are a growing concern. Back in the old days, pirate BBSes existed, but modem speeds and storage capacities were a limiting factor. Now, with high-bandwidth services like cable modems, ADSL services and high-performance networks available to a vast number of people, the concept of downloading 75 disks worth of Windows Me or the latest CD-based game or a 600-megabyte movie file isn't so outlandish. Indeed, an estimated 300,000 pirated movies a day are being downloaded from the Internet, along with literally millions of MP3 audio files.
In the old days, pirate boards tended to be run on BBSes, limiting the calls to a primarily local audience. But now, with the Web and FTP sites serving a global audience, a pirate board in Russia or anywhere else can be accessed by anyone with the right codes. In many cases, the keys to these secret sanctums are exchanged on any of the many IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels frequented by the pirate community.
On the Macintosh platform, the first major warez platform was based upon the FirstClass BBS system. A number of FirstClass-based warez boards still exist, but newer products called Hotline and Carracho have since supplanted other Mac boards as the warez vehicles of choice. So-called Hotline servers are typically run as a hobby by software traders who swap "zero-day" warez and links to other sites. The Hotline or Carracho servers are seldom available at the same IP address for more than an evening. Once the address gets out, the board is crowded with "lamers" who come to leech free software. As many home users do not have (or want) static IP addresses, the board's address changes each time their system is rebooted. Thus, bookmarks are next to useless when trying to track these denizens of the dark side.
On the PC, a number of warez search engines exist to get around the issue of figuring out addresses. Although it isn't appropriate to mention their addresses here (sorry, lamers!), FTP Indexer, a powerful zero-day search engine based in Russia, and a clever parody of the Altavista search engine called Astalavista are just a few of the more popular search tools.
Ironically, one of the more popular warez search tools is owned by none other than Lycos.
As well, the ability to search for MP3 audio files on the net is facilitated by a number of search engines and utilities, such as AudioGalaxy, KaZaA, MP3 Wolf and the MP3 Box.
As well, there are a number of locations that offer access to "crackz" and "serialz" -- codes that allow unauthorized access to illegally obtained programs. Some of these cracks remove the need to insert a CD before a game will run; some turn a time-limited demo into the Real Deal. Some remove checks for hardware keys or provide elaborate installation designed to circumvent the best schemes programmers can come up with to ensure that the copy you are running is a legal one.
While I'm not here to lecture anybody on the issue of theft (or, if you prefer, "illegal copying"), it's worth mentioning that your IP address (and even your location) can easily be obtained when you go to one of these sites, unless you use anonymizing software and really know what you are doing. Persons who post illegal software are almost invariably caught, and their Internet accounts canceled without refund. Charges may be laid. As with any theft, piracy is a serious crime with consequences that can be severe.
These facts notwithstanding, eWEEK claims its investigation reveals that the BSA's current anti-piracy campaign is primarily a marketing effort essentially designed to scare people into buying more software. The BSA, says eWEEK, "has no intention of following up on its letters—regardless of how threatening and personal they may seem. It won't phone. And it won't pop in for a surprise audit." And, it's worth noting, the BSA is not a government agency -- it's just another business... that happens to operate like a paid extortion racket.
Interestingly, for many enterprise customers who are quickly becoming fed up with the group's hardball tactics, the campaign is having the reverse effect: they are seeking out open source alternatives to expensive software packages from BSA member companies such as Microsoft, Adobe and Symantec.
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