But government actions to stem the losses may be causing more problems than they solve. And it is seen by some Italians as an ill-disguised attempt to suppress free speech on a troublesome new medium. In the U.S. a widely publicized federal case against a college student accused of operating a pirate bulletin board may backfire if, as expected, a judge rules that the charges filed against the student do not fit the crime. The underlying difficulty, say copyright experts, comes from trying to guard intangible electronic ''property'' using laws that were crafted with printing- press technology in mind. At first glance, software piracy seems no different from that of any other copyrighted material.
Chinese factories stamp out copies of American music CDs by the millions.
Pirated American movies regularly appear in Asia and Africa long before their official release on video. But software is not really like other intellectual property. Books and videotapes can be copied only by processes that are relatively time consuming and expensive, and the product is never quite as good as the original. Software, on the other hand, is easily duplicated, and the result is not a scratchy second-generation copy but a perfect working program. The rapid growth of electronic networks only compounds the problem, for it allows anyone with a computer and a modem to distribute software silently and instantaneously.