Software piracy should be banned at the operating system level - report

International moves afoot to compel operating system suppliers to stamp out software piracy on users' PCs

Apple, Microsoft, Google and other operating system suppliers should be forced to block suspected pirated media at the operating system level.

The suggestions are among several recommendations in a report published in Sweden, the home of the Pirate Bay torrenting service, by two organisations - Black Market Watch and the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

"Other players that possess the potential ability to limit piracy are the companies that own the major operating systems, which control computers and mobile devices such as Apple, Google and Microsoft," concludes the report, in a translation provided by hacker website Torrent Freak.

It continues: "The producers of operating systems should be encouraged, or regulated, for example, to block downloads of copyright-infringing material."

The report points to the change in Microsoft's terms and conditions that it introduced with Windows 10 last year, which allowed the company to force software updates and configuration changes on users that would prevent them from "playing counterfeit games".

That indicated that it would be perfectly feasible, noted the report. A number of torrent sites blocked Windows 10 when that change to Microsoft's Windows 10 Service Agreement became widely known.

The report goes on to say that Sweden would not be able to go it alone on such a measure, and that it ought to work through the European Union "and the international community" to make such measures globally applicable - or, at least, enforceable in the EU and the US. "Copyright holders can also play a role in promoting this through international industry associations," argues the report.

Such suggestions will no doubt add to many users' wariness about upgrading to Windows 10, which is still possible via a loophole that Microsoft has kept open, possibly in a bid to push up adoption.