Federation Against Software Theft urges VARs to battle against piracy
Survey shows that UK firms believe the channel has a responsibility to help improve licence management
The channel still has a major part to play in reducing the management and complexity of software licensing, according to the latest software piracy survey by the Federation Against Software Theft (The Federation).
The survey, which questioned 300 UK businesses, revealed that 63 per cent of respondents believe that the reseller community has a responsibility to ensure that end-users’ software licences are not mislaid or lost.
In addition, 31 per cent of respondents believe that vendors and resellers have a duty to simplify delivery and tracking of software licensing to help improve the management of their licences.
John Lovelock, director general of The Federation, told CRN that VARs could help tackle piracy levels by sharing end-user licensing information.
“VARs need to pass information freely between each other about the software licences end-users have bought and when they expire,” he said. “There’s still a big loss in software revenues because of piracy and that’s causing a loss for resellers. The channel would benefit from coming together to tackle the problem.”
The Federation’s survey also revealed that 48 per cent of business would struggle to prove that their software licence documentation was in order. More than one-quarter of respondents admitted they never carry out a full software audit.
Forty per cent of businesses in the UK agreed that software piracy is increasing and 49 per cent believed that those illegally downloading software were aware they were doing so.
“I’m not surprised that businesses still don’t know enough about software piracy, because it’s not very high on their priority lists,” Lovelock said.
Alan Reid, managing director of distributor Sentryst, told CRN: “Some vendors already allow VARs to source licensing information about end-users when making a sale.
“In the home-user and small business market I think piracy is a big issue because software is a significant cost, but individuals in larger enterprises often use, for example, MP3 ripping software illegally.”
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