Monday, March 4, 2002

Software Piracy Seems Rampant Among Students in Survey at 2 Universities By DAN CARNEVALE Forty percent of the students surveyed at two public universities admitted to having pirated computer software. The survey was completed by 703 students at the University of Florida at Gainesville and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas in spring 2000. The survey, which was distributed to students in a variety of courses at the two universities, asked students if they owned any unlicensed software, but it did not inquire how many such programs they had. The study was conducted by Eric Chiang, a doctoral student in economics at the University of Florida at Gainesville who expects to earn his Ph.D. in May, and Djeto Assane, an associate professor of economics at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. The study has not yet been published. Jenny S. Blank, director of enforcement for the Business Software Alliance, a trade association, said that other studies have found that 25 percent of the general public pirates software. She said she is not surprised that the study by Mr. Chiang and Mr. Assane found a higher rate of piracy. "Students have lots of time, lots of bandwidth, and not a lot of money," Ms. Blank said. Software companies are discouraging piracy by offering technical support and other services to attract students to buy licensed software, Mr. Chiang said. For example, new software often comes with a few bugs, he said. People who pirated the software would have a tough time fixing the problems on their own. "Those with licensed copies will get it fixed," he said. The students responding to the survey generally were not worried about being prosecuted for having stolen software, Mr. Chiang said. "There's hardly any enforcement to punish individuals for software piracy these days," Mr. Chiang said. "And students know this." But businesses are getting aggressive in cracking down on anyone distributing illegal software, Ms. Blank said. And when someone starts pirating software, that person takes a risk of getting into trouble with the law. "When you start getting into, 'What are the chances of my getting caught?' that's a real slippery slope," she said. Among those responding to the survey, students in upper-division courses and students majoring in a science, like computer science and engineering, were more likely to pirate software than other students. Mr. Chiang said this was probably because the university requires students to use cutting-edge software, and the students often don't want to use the university's copy or buy it themselves. "Those majors that tended to need more stole more," Mr. Chiang said. Background articles from The Chronicle: Federal Agents Raid 5 Campuses in a Widespread Software-Piracy Investigation (12/13/2001) New Company Besieges Colleges With Notices About Copyright Violations (11/30/2001) Opinion: Colleges Need to Get Serious About Stopping Illegal Copying of Computer Software (10/9/1998) Easy-to-print version E-mail this story

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