If the experience of the world's largest software vendor is any guide, the industry's best hope for reducing piracy rests with anti-copying technologies rather than in policing the legalistic user agreements that restrict how software can be used.

While a copyright crackdown by the Business Software Alliance and other industry players has been in force for years, piracy rates -- as measured by BSA-commissioned studies -- have stopped falling. So a few years ago, Microsoft Corp. began concentrating harder on locking software down through a program it calls its Genuine Software Initiative.

The technology has provoked some hostility, because it enables Microsoft to remotely examine user computers. After analyzing such information as the computer's manufacturer, hard drive serial number and Windows product identification, Microsoft can block access to certain software functions if it suspects the product was illegally copied.

Microsoft does not offer piracy statistics specific for its software. But the company says it appears its plan is working. As evidence, the company notes that in the last quarter, Windows sales were up 20 percent while worldwide PC sales were up only 14 to 16 percent. Microsoft said the difference reflected the fact