The hook for this item is a raid on a software duplication house that netted illicit copies of software purportedly worth $10 million (I say purportedly because the value is being assessed according to the retail value of the original, a value that would never be close to realized in the illicit software market). The theme of the story is to illustrate how difficult it is to enforce copyright with respect to software and to describe the Business Software Alliance's (BSA's) campaign to curb such trade. Not mentioned in the article is the BSA's most recent tactic: to snoop in ftp sites and threaten action if it finds what it believes is illicit software. Unfortunately, these emails are misdirected, flagging every instance of "Open Office," a widely circulated and perfectly legal open source system, as illicit software. Presumably it is on the basis of such notifications that universities are supposed to shut down accounts. Well, open source, after all, remains a much greater threat to commercial software vendors than illicit copying ever has been.
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