The Software Publishers’ Association (SPA) has been leading the fight against piracy in North America since 1988. At that time, a dozen SPA members formed the Copyright Protection Fund to pursue legal action against pirates and raise public awareness about the problem. Current participants in the fund include Adobe Systems, Aldus, Apple, Ashton-Tate, Autodesk, Claris, IBM, Lotus, Microsoft, Novell, The Santa Cruz Operation, Software Publishing Corporation, Symantec, and WordPerfect. Each serves as a plaintiff in cases of litigation involving pirated copies of their software.
The Copyright Protection Fund fights software piracy on behalf of the entire PC software industry, not simply members of the fund. Fund participants take action against organizations and individuals who pirate not only business applications but consumer and educational software, as well. In cases where consumer and educational software is found to be pirated, their publishers are invited to join as additional plaintiffs in the suit.
Over the past three years, the SPA has collected more than $3 million in penalties from software pirates and generated a substantial amount of new sales for the software industry as a whole. Recoveries from settlements are used to fund future litigation as well as anti-piracy educational efforts. To date, the SPA has never lost a case, and recent settlements have been high—with several companies paying between $200,000 and $300,000 in penalties.
For information managers who want to get on top of the piracy problem, the SPA can lend a hand with a free Self-Audit Kit (see accompanying product window, page 13). More than 20,000 kits have been distributed in the past two years to MIS managers, small business owners, corporate trainers, and network administrators.
The SPA encourages organizations to monitor software resources and educate employees about legal software use, and is pleased to provide qualified speakers to groups interested in learning more about software piracy.
