Piracy Isn't The Worst That Can HappenPiracy Isn't The Worst That Can Happen

This week we got to see two different aspects of software piracy. Today the Business Software Alliance released a study claiming that $51 billion worth of software was stolen last year. Earlier in the week, the New York Times did a story on how Russia is using the premise of software piracy to punish political adversaries. Microsoft is entangled in both of these.Microsoft reacted quickly to the New York Times story, which reported that Microsoft Russia may have cooperated with officials looking to harass their political enemies. In essence, Microsoft just de-weaponized Russia's software piracy by volunteering to give free copies of Microsoft software to any non-governmental organization that needed it, such as media and political groups. Many kudos to them for taking this step. The Russian government will no doubt still find ways to subdue dissenters, but at least it won't be with the help of bogus software piracy charges.

Software licenses actually make pretty good weapons. In its report, the BSA emphasizes that you can be fined up to $250,000 for illegally copying a single software title, since you are breaking copyright law. This is the same disproportionate punishment that can cost a college student thousands of dollars in fines for copying a song that costs 99 cents on iTunes. The difference is that the BSA has historically focused on cases of mass copying by larger businesses, fed by confidential informants (most likely, disgruntled former employees). By avoiding high-profile public lawsuits against students and grandmothers, the BSA has managed to steer clear of the public outrage heaped on the music and movie industries.

There's no denying that some people and businesses use software without paying for every copy they use. I work for a company that creates consumer software, and no doubt some people don't buy every copy they have. I'd bet that most copiers aren't intentional cheats, and don't realize they're breaking the rules by copying a single licensed program to several computers. In a business, employees may copy software not because they want to save the company money, but because the company's acquisition process takes too darned long. None of these individual acts seem like transgressions that justify a quarter-million-dollar punishment. Yet we have criminalized them to that level.

Inequitable laws sometimes have unintended effects. Advocates of strong copyright laws hoped that astronomical penalties would prevent anyone from even considering use of intellectual property in unapproved ways, or at least yield a big payday if someone dared to try. Instead, the Russian incident shows that those laws can just as easily be abused by a corrupt and tyrannical government. Following the lead of Microsoft, I think we should all fight tyranny before piracy.