SIIA: 75% of all eBay software is illegal

by Stevie Smith - Jul 28 2008, 12:21

While it won’t arrive as much of a surprise to those eBay users wary of the auction site’s credibility when it comes to hosting the sale of authentic technology-based goods, a renowned software industry trade group has slapped a sizeable percentage estimate on just how much counterfeit software it believes is changing hands through the hugely popular service.

Specifically, the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) offers that a massive 75 percent of all software sold on eBay is pirated.

Further to that, the trade group claims eBay needs to shoulder a significant amount of the blame for such a figure due to its continuing refusal to implement the necessary steps recommended by the SIIA to clamp down on sellers auctioning illegal software.

Speaking on Friday of last week, Keith Kuperschmid, the SIIA’s Senior Vice President of Intellectual Property Policy and Enforcement, told tech news site Information Week that although eBay is prepared to remove individual auctions once notified, the service will not create “pre-emptory, proactive measures” designed to drastically reduce illegal sales.

eBay’s lingering reticence is perhaps fuelled by the prospect of impacted sales figures that would likely emerge if pre-emptive measures such as posting official notification of counterfeit content onto a seller’s feedback profile were introduced. The SIIA would also like to see eBay actively penalising those individual sellers found to be auctioning illegal goods.

The SIIA also notes that eBay is yet to develop any form of effective technology designed to seek out those guilty sellers who register and use multiple site identities in order to continue trading whenever individual auctions are reported and removed.

While the SIIA won’t yet commit itself to the possibility of suing eBay for its refusal to increase its efforts to help minimise illegal software sales, Kuperschmid has outlined that the topic remains a point of discussion for the trade group’s members, which last met in May of this year.

“It continues to be on the table,” commented Kuperschmid, who also went on to say that the possibility of suing eBay for its lack of action is “definitely being discussed by the SIIA and its members,” which include tech industry heavyweights such as IBM and Oracle.

From eBay’s standpoint, the auction service maintains that it is doing all it can to suppress the sale of pirated software and is open to continuing talks with the SIIA regarding its proposed prevention methods. However, an official spokeswoman for eBay has said software piracy is a global issue that “isn’t going away overnight,” and is not just limited to eBay’s pages.

In related news, the SIIA has recently marked a victory in its ongoing battle against the proliferation of counterfeit software after a U.S. court sentenced illegal software trader Jeremiah Mondello of Oregon to four years behind bars.

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