Business Software Alliance Testifies at House Hearing on Jobs and IP Piracy
During July 21, 2010 testimony at a House Committee for Small Business hearing on "The Impact of Intellectual Property on Entrepreneurship and Job Creation", the Business Software Alliance stated that it will soon be releasing a study to quantify the impact of unfair software competition. Preliminary results estimate that addressing this problem in China alone would add over 25,000 new U.S. software jobs and many times that throughout the rest of the economy. SBA recommended that small businesses continue to be trained to manage their software licenses to protect themselves from the legal, technical and financial consequences of using unlicensed software. BSA has partnered with the Small Business Administration to develop resources for small businesses, including its “Software Strategies for Small Business” guide and its www.smartaboutsoftware.org website.
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Another critical element is enforcement. BSA enforces the IP rights of its member companies in the U.S. and many countries overseas. But BSA is only one part of the equation. Governments need to do their part in stopping IP theft. This is particularly critical for small software developers that do not have the means to enforce their IP rights on their own.
BSA is encouraged by the Obama Administration’s release of a Joint Strategic Plan on IP Enforcement last month to coordinate and strengthen the government’s enforcement efforts. BSA urges the U.S. government to execute on this plan and to provide the responsible agencies with sufficient resources to do so. The government should put particular emphasis on finding ways to help small businesses bridge the gap between the promise of IP rights and the reality of IP enforcement. Greater attention should be paid to ensuring that IP theft doesn’t snuff out small software developers before they have the opportunity to become tomorrow’s household names.