Small Business Owners Address Software Piracy

Toronto, ON - Software piracy protection appears to be a serious issue among most Canadian small business owners, according to a new Ipsos Reid on-line survey of Canadian small business owners conducted on behalf of Microsoft Canada.

According to the survey, one in seven small business owners (14%) believe that their business has at some point in time unknowingly used pirated software. This statistic would appear to be something that would not sit well within the small business community, as big majorities of these company owners offer strong condemnation of pirated software usage, for example:

• Nine in ten (91%) agree using pirated software is unethical and small businesses need to be vigilant about making sure their software is genuine;
• 88% disagree that there is nothing wrong with using pirated software;
• 83% believe downloading, swapping or making copies of commercial software is wrong,
• 78% believe the installation of pirated software negatively impacts the Canadian economy, and
• 73% disagree that software piracy is a victimless crime.

When asked what they believe is the most important reason why a small business owner should invest in genuine commercial software as opposed to counterfeit or pirated software, a plurality (39%) say because "it is the right thing to do and I pride myself on running an ethical business".

So what are small business owners doing to protect themselves from pirated software? Just over half (54%) say their business regularly checks the types of software that it uses make sure it is genuine, and four in ten (40%) have software management policies in place to protect their business from unlicensed software. Half (49%) disagree with the statement that "keeping track of whether software is genuine is a low priority for their business".

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid poll conducted from September 15th to September 20th, 2005 via a regionally representative online Canadian sample of 855 small business owners (small business was defined as 20 or fewer employees). For this sample, results can be considered accurate 95% of the time with a 3.4% margin of error, of what it would have been had this entire population been surveyed. Please open the attached PDF to view the factum and detailed tables.

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For more information on this news release, please contact:

Paul Orovan

Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
(416) 324-2900