Piracy demographics.

The latest word from the folks at the Software Publishers Association concerns what might be called "the geography of software piracy." It turns out that California--specifically the Los Angeles metro area--is the nation's #1 source of "raids, lawsuits, cease and desist letters, and software audits." San Francisco ranked third on the SPA's list (just behind New York City), and San Jose also made an appearance in ninth place. In the past three years, the SPA reports, California accounted for a whopping 35% of the association's total anti-piracy activities.

One reason we find this nugget of data fascinating, of course, is that we've been urging the SPA to get its butt out of Washington, D.C. and to move closer to the industry's Silicon Valley grassroots. Now we find that California is also where the action is in software piracy, an issue dear to the SPA's heart (and pocketbook). We expect the moving vans to start rolling any day now..

(We also notice that Washington, D.C. doesn't even show up among the SPA's top 15 piracy hot spots, and that government agencies--who are otherwise notorious for their disregard of all intellectual property rights--accounted for a mere 1% of the SPA's anti-piracy activity. Could it be that the staff attorneys at SPA headquarters are reluctant to bite the hand that someday might feed them?)