Web crawler is the next weapon in fight against software piracy

The BSA seems to be using a
web crawler that crawls the web to find websites hosting pirated software. The
BSA has been using this for a long time to find pirates in Europe and the United
States and has now announced it will now also use this technology in Asia where
high speed internet connections are now getting more common. 

So
far, the Web crawler has found in Asia over 22,000 violations of copyright
through file sharing, downloading or purchases through the Internet.


The snooping software targets sites carrying pirate
versions of business software programs belonging to BSA members. The
alliance then asks Internet Service Providers (ISPs) hosting the sites to
shut them down.


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The Web crawler was first launched in the United States last year and
then in Europe earlier this year. In 2002, it uncovered 1.48 million
software infringements in the United States, including multiple
infringements on many Web sites. So far in 2003, over 71,000 notices have
been sent to ISPs hosting pirate Web sites, compared with over 73,000 for
2002.


The biggest headache for software firms was unauthorized file sharing,
often involving the peer-to-peer (P2P) programs that have plagued the
music industry, which the BSA said made up 87 percent of Internet software
piracy.

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Source: Yahoo.com

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