Editorial: Piracy under attack

Software piracy statistics scream for attention every May when the Business Software Alliance (BSA) releases its piracy report. Its angst is understandable when it rues that almost half of the estimated one billion personal computers (PCs) have pirated/unlicensed software, resulting in losses of $48 billion "" an increase of six times over the 2007 figures. In India too, while piracy dropped by two percentage points, in value terms, it rose to $2 billion in 2007 as compared to $1.28 billion in 2006.

Software piracy also affects the economy. The US suffers the most, as it provides about 80 per cent of the world's software. Other major countries include China, Vietnam and India. A recent IDC study suggests that reducing PC software piracy by 10 percentage points over a period of four years in India could generate 44,000 new jobs, $3.1 billion in economic growth and Rs 800 crore in tax revenues. Peer-to-peer file-sharing technologies can only add to the woes with the younger workforce distributing pirated material.

The BSA could not have built a better case. But there are holes too. For one, as the price of software increases every year, the total value of software piracy as calculated by it is bound to increase even if there's a dip in piracy rates. In this context, IDC "" which did the study for BSA "" itself preferred to describe the figures as the retail value of pirated software, rather than sales lost to piracy. Secondly, as the BSA notes, of the 108 countries included in its new report, the use of pirated software dropped in 67 countries, and rose in only eight. Piracy rates in India too have been on a gradual decline due to efforts by the government, industry bodies and software companies. The Free Software Foundation, for instance, terms BSA's use of the word piracy as "an analogy way out of proportion" (since nobody is physically harmed by software piracy). The non-profit FSF argues that the solution is simply to abandon proprietary software and develop licensed and open-source software "" both commercial and non-commercial "" that users are encouraged to "use, study, copy, modify and redistribute".

There's now an open-source alternative for almost every major software need, ranging from databases and office suites to business applications. The benefits include cost savings "" buyers typically pay only for support, since the software is free. 'Open source' software is also less vulnerable to viruses and bugs because the computer code is public knowledge. Google and Linux serve as very good examples. Vendors in India have already started pre-installing Linux on PCs to reduce costs. On the server front, Linux is already a potent force. Major firms and institutions like the LIC of India, IDBI, IndiaBulls and HDFC use Linux on their servers, even for "mission-critical" applications.

In most cases, the implementation of Linux in Indian enterprises is by Red Hat. Novell is the other prominent Linux vendor. However, if one has an in-house IT maintenance department, it is possible to choose from hundreds of other Linux distributions "" Mandriva, Debian, Suse,PCLinuxOS, Knoppix and Ubuntu, to name a few "" for desktops and enterprises (especially small and medium companies). Linux today has gained the support of corporations such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Novell. In India, besides major companies, state governments in Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra have started using Linux in a bid to promote "open-source" environments, which also explains, to some extent, the drop in software piracy rates. Moreover, in an age when goliaths like Google are paving the way to success with free software, proprietary software vendors should do some soul-searching too. It's also time that SMEs took the cue. They should start using 'open source' and free software, and stop paying the heavy price associated with the term software "pirates".