THE MONEY BILL GATES DIDN'T MAKE

Software "pirates" illegally copied billions of dollars' worth of personal computer programs last year -- nearly as much as the software business took in over the counter, according to a new industry report. The Software Publishers Association says piracy of spreadsheet and similar programs lost companies $7.4 billion in 1993, compared to about $8 billion in sales. The worst abuses were in emerging markets in Asia and Latin America. But Stanton McCandlish, the maverick Electronic Frontier Foundation's "on-line activist," argues the theft trend may have actually helped the complaining software industry: "Piracy gets software exposure. People are 1,000 times more likely to go and buy newer versions and manuals once they've been exposed to it."parpar