Following Europe’s first case of legal action against use of pirated software by the Italian company Montedison SpA, data for 1988 from the consultancy Intelligent Electronics shows that Spain is in fact the worst offender in Europe when it comes to software piracy. At the beginning of 1988, it estimates, a shocking 83% of the personal computer software in use in Spain was pirated, only 17% was legal – this compares with 43% illegal and 57% legal for Europe as a whole. By the end of 1988, the situation had improved within Spain to the extent that for every two software packages in existence, only one is now illegal. Nevertheless, Asicom SA has detected about 30,000 copies of the 2,500 Xenix packages it sold last year. Software companies claim pirating losses amount to $40m to $50m a year and blame the high level of illegal copying on ignorance – as elsewhere, copy protection is used on little software sold in Spain. The 1987 Intellectual Property Law has reduced the incidence of illegal copies, particularly in big users, but there are still those who acquire 10 applications from the official distributor and are now using millions of copies, and this sort of situation is difficult to eradicate. The Spanish Computer Companies Association, SEDISI, is hoping that consultants and accountants will begin to include incidence of copying in their reports on companies, although many companies are already taking measures to reduce illegal copying by employees. At the moment there is just one company that is whiter than white and uses only legal software that company is Telefonica de Espana SA.
