Can Cloud Computing Stop Software Piracy?
September 7, 2012
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…
However, some members of BSA believed that cloud applications will greatly minimize software piracy. Last year, in an interview with Forbes, Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen said that piracy will be significantly reduced because cloud and Software-as-a-Service applications will continuously require internet connection. Kevin Lalor, Business Intelligence 101 CEO and Founder, is in complete accord with Narayen’s position regarding software piracy. According to him, SaaS applications are able to track account usage and logins. Thus, software piracy will eventually be eliminated with the cloud’s subscription model. Cloud Sherpas Chief Technology Officer David Hoff also believes that with real-time analytics offered by cloud computing applications, it is now possible for the software publisher to gain basic control over their applications…
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