53 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
53 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
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JUNE 1990
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COMPUTERWORLD
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SOFTWARE PIRACY RAMPANT, SURVEY SHOWS
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LONDON - Over $US520 million was lost in illegal software
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copying in the UK last year, according to a survey on
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software theft published by the Federation of Software Theft
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(FAST).
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The report, funded by Microsoft, Ashton-Tate, Wordperfect,
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Lotus Development and Frontline, shows 55% of senior managers
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using PC's at work copy software illegally. Of all senior
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managers, 41% have currently broken the 1988 Copyright,
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Designs and Patents Act. Almost one in three (31%) of senior
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managers say their company has no control over illegal
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duplication of software.
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Bob Hay, chief executive of Fast, says, "When the new act
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came into force in August 1989, we based our campaign around
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education and awareness. Our telephones were [busy] for five
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or six weeks. Mainly it was the companies that wished to
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assure themselves that they were complying with the new
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copyright law. The success of that campaign resulted in us
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having a meeting where we said, "Where do we go from here?
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We've had our worst suspicion confirmed."
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The survey looked at 267 senior managers in companies with
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an annual turnover of over $US90 million and separately
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surveyed more than 2000 members of the public. It suggests
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as many as two million people have no awareness of the
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software copyright law.
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Peter Bailey, managing director of Lotus, says, "We think
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we're losing between $US70 million and $US78 million a year.
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But I think it's a bigger problem for the smaller vendors
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than for us. Copy protection was horribly inconvenient, and
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we replaced it with an 'honesty screen'".
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Paul Sloane, managing director of Ashton-Tate, says, "I was
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shocked by the results of this poll. This explodes the myth
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the UK is clean and sensible. Software piracy is the cancer
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that threatens both the users and the industry. It threatens
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corporations. It puts them at risk from adverse publicity,
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risk of prosecution and viruses."
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"Copying software is theft. No question," says UK Microsoft
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managing director David Svendsen.
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