Manufacturing and Engineering Among Top 10 Victims of Software Piracy

By DE Editors

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has released a list of the Top 10 U.S. industries with the highest number of reports of PC software piracy. BSA identified the Top 10 industries based on confidential reports of software piracy that the organization receives via its Web site and its toll-free hotline,  888-NO-PIRACY.

On behalf of its member companies, BSA solicits and receives more than 2,500 confidential reports of PC software piracy each year from informants across the United States. The Top 10 industries most cited in confidential software piracy reports to BSA by actual informants in 2008 were:

1. Manufacturing
2. Sales/Distribution
3. Service (general category)
4. Financial Services
5. Software Development
6. IT Consulting
7. Medical
8. Engineering
9. School/Education
10. Consulting
 

The BSA data also show that the median age of informants is 36. Approximately 77 percent identify themselves as information technology personnel, and the rest are mostly sales personnel, managers, and audio/visual technicians. In 2008, BSA distributed more than $136,000 in cash rewards to 42 individuals as a result of the solid information they provided on software piracy.

According to the Sixth Annual BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Report, an estimated 20 percent of the software programs installed in the United States in 2008 were unauthorized copies without legal licenses. The retail value of pirated PC software was $9.1 billion in the US alone and $53 billion globally.

For more information, visit the Business Software Alliance.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.