Can Cloud Computing Stop Software Piracy?
Grazed from CloudTimes. Author: Florence de Borja.
With the influx of software applications using the Software-as-a-Service model, experts claim that software piracy will eventually be eliminated. However, some pessimists are claiming that users will just find ways to circumvent everything so that they won’t pay for software use. The Business Software Alliance (BSA) released its new survey results wherein it found out that 42% of the 15,000 PC users-respondents in 33 countries admitted to sharing their login credentials to paid cloud computing services with other people within their organizations. According to BSA President and CEO Robert Holleyman, such act doesn’t constitute piracy as some cloud computing services do allow simultaneous logins using just one account. Other than that, sharing login credentials can cause terms of service violations or license abuse.
The Economist has widely criticized BSA’s survey primarily because some wordings in the survey don’t specifically mention that login-credential sharing is a clear violation of paid cloud service license or terms of service. However, BSA is adamant in claiming that everyone must be concerned about “cloud piracy”. BSA Senior Vice President for External Affairs Matt Reid claims that although cloud piracy hasn’t reached the same position as that of traditional software piracy, the results of their survey must be taken into consideration…


The power of very big supporters of OpenStack has become more evident in recent weeks. In less than two years, the open source platform OpenStack cloud deployment drew the attention of the biggest players in the industry. Companies such as Rackspace, through its private cloud, already offer free OpenStack distribution. Others like CloudScaling, Piston Cloud Computing, Red Hat, and Ubuntu offer their own version of OpenStack deployment.