In a secret location in London a team of internet investigators surf the net hunting for sites that publish pirated software. Fed with leads from emails, a phone hotline and tip-offs from industry sources the Business Software Alliance works to stem the flow of unlicensed software online.
"We keep the location a secret to protect our staff from reprisals by angry pirates," says Margo Miller, head of the BSA's European enforcement unit.
The web is the latest battlefield in a piracy war which, the BSA estimates, last year alone cost the software industry worldwide £7bn in missed revenue.
"In the UK 26% of new business software installed last year was illegal," says Miller. "That's one in every four computers running a complete suite of pirated programs."
And that is before the figures for games and non-business software are factored in. Industry insiders estimate the total amount of illicit software installed stands closer to 35%.
The BSA's sponsoring partners include Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft and Symantec. "If you take that figure of 35%, then we missed out on $50m in sales last year," says Sue Thexton, vice-president of Macromedia Europe.
"All that could have gone towards research and development costs."
Miller says: "Every single software product you can think of is available somewhere illegally on the internet. You can get everything from direct program downloads, serial numbers and cracked software, to compilation CDs put together by professional racketeers who sell pirate software through online stores and in auction sites."
In the past three months Miller's team sent out 846 "cease and desist" warnings to ISPs (internet service providers), 91% of which lead to the closure of offending web sites. Online auction sites are a particular problem - BSA investigators found over 80% of software sold there was illicit.
On the web, professional fraudsters run only a small portion of the pirate software, or "warez", sites. Most sites are "not-for-profit", run as a service for friends. "We find many warez sites are run by teenagers," says Miller.
Dan, a 15-year-old schoolboy from Alberta, Canada, recently set up a site offering everything from the latest version of Microsoft Office, to the graphics package Adobe PhotoShop and scores of PC games.
Pornography
"Lots of warez sites are full of pornography and dead links. I wanted to create a site where you could find what you wanted quickly without having to click through tens of ads," he says. Dan uses one of the big free online US sites to host the illicit files. "That way it's easier to set up again if someone closes you down. I don't see I'm doing any harm. The people who use this software usually can't afford the real thing anyway, like students. No one is losing anything."
Miller sees things differently. "I think we perhaps should make an example of one of these kids to send a message that piracy is illegal in every form."
Steve Keyser, owner of Tera-byte, the ISP that hosts Dan's web site, can't see what the fuss is all about: "If you follow through half the warez links I think you'll usually find there's nothing at the end, just endless ads. And the software you do find probably doesn't work, or might well have a virus in it. You'd be a fool to use pirate software."
Yet millions of people do. For the BSA and ISPs alike the problem is that as soon as one site is shut down another will pop up under a different name or on another ISP. Type "warez" into any search engine and the list of matching sites will run to hundreds of thousands. With a little persistence you will find what you want.
Though most ISPs co-operate with the BSA, there is a hard-core of defiant companies which ignore the organisation's demands. Miller suspects these are probably run by pirates themselves. "In the UK alone there are three ISPs who have not complied with our repeat warnings. We are considering legal action if they do not come into line soon," she says.
Mike Newton, who lobbies the European parliament for the BSA, says: "ISPs should take responsibility for what is on their servers. We will be publishing guidelines for ISPs in a few months. But there's no use tackling this just in Europe. It is a global problem and we have to have global laws."
The BSA has announced a reward of up to £10,000 for information on organisations using illegal software. Meanwhile, Microsoft is taking matters into its own hands. The company announced a truce to anyone using pirated software: "It's not an amnesty," explains Julia Phillpot, Microsoft UK's anti-piracy manager.
"If you've bought a packaged copy of a Microsoft product that looks like the real thing and you have proof of purchase we will swap the package for one authentic unit." The aim is to build up evidence of professional pirate traders to help with future legal action against them.
Microsoft is installing anti-piracy precautions in its next release of Office. "We have built in what we call the Office Automation Wizard," says Phillpot. "It's an online registration system that is very hard to break. If, after 50 uses, you don't register your new software then the program will lock up until you do."
But with the imminent introduction of broadband internet access, and the increased popularity of file-sharing systems like Napster, Hotline, Gnutella and Freenet, downloading pirated software from the net will soon be as quick and easy as sending an email.
Laurence Westwood, chief investigator at the Foundation Against Software Theft, admits the situation is going to get much, much worse: "With the introduction of these file sharing systems and as bandwidth increases we're going to have a very big headache."
Robin Hood
For Nick, a London music producer in his late twenties, the rise of online piracy is inevitable: "I've long used Hotline (an ancestor of Napster) to get all my software. I've downloaded thousands of pounds worth to my machine. It's just a way of life, and once the download speeds increase I'm sure everyone will be doing it."
For others getting software free is a matter of Robin Hood-like pride: "I never pay for software if I can help it," says Bill, a web designer.
"The industry is rich enough as it is, and the corporations pay more than enough for their software licences. Most people can't afford it anyway, why should they start paying now?"
Meanwhile Miller and her minions will keep on hunting. But the smart money would be wise to think of a business model that avoids piracy altogether, rather than try to fight the flood.
