In 1996 worldwide illegal copying of domestic and international software cost $15.2 billion to the software industry, with a loss of $5.1 billion in the North America alone. Some sources put the total up-to-date losses, due to software crime, as high as $4.7 trillion. On the next page is a regional breakdown of software piracy losses for 1994. Estimates show that over 40 percent of North American software company revenues are generated overseas, yet nearly 85 percent of the software industry's piracy losses occurred outside of North America. The Software Publishers Association (SPA) indicated that approximately 35 percent of the business software in the North America was obtained illegally. In fact, 30 percent of the piracy occurs in corporate settings. In a corporate setting or business, every computer must have its own set of original software and the appropriate number of manuals. It is illegal for a corporation or business to purchase a single set of original s!

oftware and then load that software onto more than one computer, or lend, copy or distribute software for any reason without the prior written consent of the software manufacturer. Many software managers are concerned with the l

Federal appellate courts have determined that operating systems, object code and software contained in ROMs are protected by copyright. Some lower federal courts have also determined that microcode (the instructions set on microprocessor chips) and the look and feel of computer screens is subject to copyright protection. Which has created major problems for the widespread development of multimedia applications with regards to clearing copyright for small elements of text, images, video and sound.

A computer is useless without software. The two types of software typically found on a computer are operating systems software and application software. Operating system software provides an interface that makes it easier to develop programs for the system by reducing the amount of code that must be written. The operating system acts as an interface between the computer hardware, application programs and the end user. Application software consists of one or more computer programs that fulfill a specific function for the user like word processing, bookkeeping or financial analysis.

Also available is the SPA Software Management Guide which helps companies audit their current software policies, educate employees about the legal use of software, and establish procedures to purchase, register, upgrade and backup computing systems. The guide, in addition, provides an Internal Controls Analysis and Questionnaire. The guide also contains all of the SPA's current anti-piracy materials.