Microsoft says technology key

If the experience of the world's largest software vendor is any guide, the industry's best hope for reducing piracy rests with anti-copying technologies rather than in policing the legalistic user agreements that restrict how software can be used.

While a copyright crackdown by the Business Software Alliance and other industry players has been in force for years, piracy rates, as measured by the alliance's commissioned studies, have stopped falling. So a few years ago, Microsoft began concentrating harder on locking software down through a program it calls its Genuine Software Initiative.

The technology has provoked some hostility because it enables Microsoft to remotely examine user computers. After analyzing such information as the computer's manufacturer, hard drive serial number and Windows product identification, Microsoft can block access to certain software functions if it suspects the product was illegally copied.

Microsoft does not offer piracy statistics specific for its software. But the company says it appears its plan is working. As evidence, the company notes in the last quarter, Windows sales were up 20 percent while worldwide PC sales were up only 14 to 16 percent. Microsoft said the difference reflected the fact people with counterfeit copies of Windows were having to put the real thing on their existing computers.

Cori Hartje, who heads the genuine-software team for Microsoft, cautions the lockdown is just part of the company's plan for reducing piracy. Alliance-style enforcement and user education remain important elements, she said.