Andre Yoskowitz
13 Feb 2011 21:10
Last year, the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), paid out $57,000 to piracy whistleblowers, rewarding 16 reports.
Overall, the group received 157 reports of alleged 'corporate end user software piracy' and pursued 42 of those. Only 16 paid out, however.
Most of the reports came from former IT staff members, with a full 75 percent coming from current or ex IT staff and managers. 11 percent came from company senior management and 4 percent came from outside consultants. The rest was a variety of sources.
Of those reporting, 59 percent were no longer employed by the company they snitched on, and SIIA says many of those reported that the primary reason they left was the company's unethical use of pirated software.
The sizes of the companies reported were rather large, with the average having 567 employees and annual sales of $441 million. The most pirated software came from the "productivity" sector, at 57 percent.
In 2010, 36 companies settled software and content infringement cases with the SIIA. The first case settled involved graphics software and was settled for over $200,000.