Jeffrey J Hardee, vice president & regional director, Asia, Business Software Alliance shares his views about the impact of software piracy and his game plan for the Indian market with Gaurav Patra

What’s the objective of Business Software Alliance (BSA)?
BSA works with different organisations across the globe to promote growth in the software industry. It is an interface between software developers in the international marketplace and their respective governments and consumers. We work with other industry associations, including the International Property Alliance, MPA and other local software associations. Today, one of the major constraints in the software industry is piracy. BSA was formed with the aim of protection and promotion of the software industry. The basic aim of BSA is to educate people on the effects of piracy on the IT industry.

What’s the driving force behind BSA?
We believe in and advocate the cause of a piracy-free software industry as there are huge financial ramifications to the world economy in its absence. Pirated software directly affects developers, who cannot recover their research and development costs and are thus unable to fund new projects. It also adversely affects support providers, who lose on opportunities because fewer legitimate sales means fewer users entitled to legal support. Piracy also affects resellers. They lose out on employment opportunities due to decrease in legitimate sales. And, end-users forfeit their right to support documentation, warranties and periodic updates. This is the understanding that remains the driving force behind BSA.

Who is BSA's target audience?
We target government, industry associations, IT professionals, IT educational institutions, SMEs, trade channels, grey market operators, media and any other user of software applications. We want to increase awareness on the negative impact of software piracy.

Globally, what's the rate of software piracy?
According to the BSA Annual Global Piracy report for the year 2001, the software piracy rates worldwide stood at 40 percent. This implies that four out of every 10 software programs worldwide are being pirated. And this translates into losses of $10.97 billion. As far as piracy rates in different countries are concerned; in the US it is 25 percent, in Asia Pacific 54 percent, Japan 27 percent, Korea 48 percent and China 92 percent. And dollar losses in Asia Pacific alone amounted to $4.8 billion in 2001. Regions having higher piracy rates are Eastern Europe and Africa.

What’s your perception about the level of piracy in India?
India is a huge country and a large number of users here are using pirated software. India is ranked at 23 in the list of 25 countries that lead the world in software piracy. However, in terms of piracy growth it is ranked second among the top 25 countries. The piracy rate in India shot up to 70 percent in 2001 from 63 percent in 2000. And this translated into revenue loss of $3,65,318 in 2001.

What’s BSA’s gameplan to lower the rate of software piracy in India?
In India, we have tied up with Nasscom to stunt the effect of piracy on the development of the Indian economy and the IT industry as a whole. We have formulated an anti-piracy campaign in India based on the three pillars—awareness, policy and enforcement. The awareness pillar supports efforts for education of the general public on proper software usage and the legal and economic implications of using pirated software. It consists of endorsement, education and thought leadership. The second pillar is policy, which comprises building mutually beneficial relationships with governments, Nasscom and other industry associations like CII, FICCI and MAIT, with an aim of strengthening copyright laws to include software protection and increase penalties for infringement, thereby encouraging tighter law enforcement efforts by relevant authorities. The third is the enforcement pillar. This is all about legal action against those engaged in pirating and counterfeiting software. Some of the initiatives taken by BSA in this field include the recently introduced hotline number, rewards and assistance to the police in criminal raids.