Busting Software Pirates

It's not hard to see what attracts criminals to the software racket. A drug dealer pays about $47,000 for a kilo of cocaine, and can sell it on the street for about $94,000, a 100% profit. But for the same outlay of $47,000 — and a lot less risk — an enterprising crook can buy 1,500 pirated copies of Office 2000 Professional and resell them for a profit of 900%.

The rise of cybercrime has prompted police organizations across Europe to set up new high-tech crime divisions. The Hague-based force that coordinates police investigations into organized crime, Europol, is setting up a new center to track criminals over the Internet. The U.K. has its own high-tech crime unit, as do Italy, Spain and Sweden.

Police units, however, are only as effective as a country's laws. Italy's are stiff: up to four years in prison and a $15,000 fine for anyone caught selling, distributing, producing and importing illegal copyright-protected goods, plus a second system of even heftier fines. This year, Italian police have arrested 1,329 people for music-copyright violation alone, says Luca Vespignani, a music anti-piracy official who works for the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

But all too often, software providers say, pirates get off too easily. In March of 1998, Danish police conducted a raid against a piracy ring which had produced 125,000 cd-roms containing counterfeited software with a retail value of $237 million. Yet the pirates got off with suspended sentences and small fines. "They were back in business within a few months," says Beth Scott, vice president of BSA's European branch .

The bsa and other industry groups are calling on governments to institute tougher and consistent sanctions. To that end, the BSA eagerly anticipates the expected release, by year's end, of a counterfeiting and piracy directive that would harmonize civil enforcement procedures across Europe. The European Commission has recognized this need for years, but jurisdiction issues have stalled the directive, says Francisco Mingorance, director of European public policy for the BSA.

As always, there are principled opponents of such sweeping laws. Martin Keegan, deputy director of the U.K.-based Digital Rights Campaign, argues that laws aimed at hard-core criminals can end up hurting people making copies for their own use, and impinge on privacy.

Software providers argue that without stiff penalties, software piracy is bound to get worse. "It's great that governments and law enforcement are starting to crack down but we still have a long way to go," says a senior Microsoft anti-piracy attorney. "Hard-core criminals will not be deterred as long as the profits are high and the risks are low."

Piracy charges don't seem to have deterred Murray-Cowan. As long as laws in the E.U. differ and trafficking in software is seen as a great business venture, new high-tech crime units are likely to remain busy.