Economic Consequences of Software Crime In 1996 worldwide illegal copying of domestic and international software cost $15.2 billion to the software industry, with a loss of $5.1 billion in the Some sources put the total up-to-date losses, due tosoftware crime, as high as $4.7 trillion. On the next page is a regionalbreakdown of software piracy losses for 1994. Estimates show that over 40percent of North American software company revenues are generated overseas,yet nearly 85 percent of the software industry's piracy losses occurred outsideof North America. The Software Publishers Association (SPA) indicated thatapproximately 35 percent of the business software in the North America wasobtained illegally. In fact, 30 percent of the piracy occurs in corporatesettings. In a corporate setting or business, every computer must have itsown set of original software and the appropriate number of manuals. It isillegal for a corporation or business to purchase a single set of original s!oftware and then load that software onto more than one computer, or lend, copyor distribute software for any reason without the prior written consent of thesoftware manufacturer. Many software managers are concerned with the legalcompliance, along with asset management and costs to their organizations. Manyfirms involve their legal departments and human resources in regards tosoftware distribution and licensing.Information can qualify to be property in two ways; patent law and copyrightlaws which are creations of federal statutes, which are subject toConstitutional authority. In order for the government to prosecute theunauthorized copying of computerized information as theft, it must first relyon other theories of information-as-property. Trade secret laws are created byprovincial law, and most jurisdictions have laws that criminalize theviolations of a trade-secret holder's rights. The definition of a trade secretvaries somewhat from province ...
