Software Piracy:
A Worldwide Problem Software piracy is defined as the illegal copying of software for commercial or personal gain. Software companies have tried many methods to prevent piracy, with varying degrees of success. Several agencies like the Software Publishers Association and the Business Software Alliance have been formed to combat both worldwide and domestic piracy. Software piracy is an unresolved, worldwide problem, costing millions of dollars in lost revenue. Software companies have used many different copy protection schemes. The most annoying form of copy protection is the use of a key disk. This type of copy protection requires the user to insert the original disk every time the program is run. It can be quite difficult to keep up with disks that are years old. The most common technique of copy protection requires the user to look up a word or phrase in the program's manual. This method is less annoying than other forms of copy protection, but it can be a nuisance having to locate the manual every time. Software pirates usually have no trouble "cracking" the program, which permanently removes the copy protection. After the invention of CD-ROM, which until lately was uncopyable, most software companies stopped placing copy protection in their programs. Instead, the companies are trying new methods of disc impression. 3M recently developed a new technology of disc impression which allows companies to imprint an image on the read side of a CD-ROM. This technology would not prevent pirates from copying the CD, but it would make a "bootleg" copy differ from the original and make the copy traceable by law enforcement officials (Estes 89). Sometimes, when a person uses a pirated program, there is a "virus" attached to the program. Viruses are self-replicating programs that, when activated, can damage a computer. These viruses are most commonly found on pirated computer games, placed there by some malignant computer programmer. In his January 1993 article, Chris O' Malley points out that if piracy was wiped out viruses would eventually disappear (O' Malley 60). There are ways that a thrifty consumer can save money on software without resorting to piracy. Computer companies often offer discounts on new software if a person has previously purchased an earlier version of the software. Competition between companies also drives prices low and keeps the number of pirated copies down (Morgan 45). People eventually tire or outgrow their software and decide to sell it.
An option that copyright owners have considered toward protecting their works from circulating in P2P networks is to use a variety of technological tools to prevent piracy. Such tools would be capable of blocking, decoying and redirecting the connections of unauthorized copyrighted file transfers. However, federal and state laws such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of ...
Modern piracy has touched nearly every corner of the globe and has increased with globalization. The tentacles of piracy now extend from South America to the South China Sea. The greatest numbers of piracy incidents occur along maritime commercial trade routes. Since China dominates the world’s container shipping industry, the South China Sea has become a hotspot for piracy (Kraska 2011). The prominence of cargo activity increases opportunity for pirates and indisputably triggered the sixty- nine incidents of piracy that were reported in 2009 in the South China Sea (Kraska 2011).
One type of protection is used on software products. This protection comes in two pieces. The first piece prevents a user from copying the CD. This is usually done by having a portion of the CD unreadable by CD drives. The second portion of the protection requires that the user insert the CD in the drive in order to use the application. This check involves validating the CD as an original CD which would include look...
Pirating games is exceedingly easy. For example, the Nintendo DS - the world’s most popular portable video game console – needs only a flash cart (essentially an adapter that allows a memory card to be inserted) to run pirated software. Though it’s not quite as simple to pirate Sony PSP content, the task is still manageable: after making slight modifications to the memory card, users are free to run unauthorized software. Most tellingly, however, the world’s best selling console to date – the Sony PlayStation 2 – needs only a slight physical modification to enable users to run software that removes restrictions on pirated games.
Nevertheless, before analyzing the impact of music piracy on a mass scale, one must start from the beginning of the 1990?s when the music industry experienced a growth in CD sales. In fact, ?according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), album sales grew from US $24.1 billion to US $38.6 billion during the decade.?(Zentner) But this era was short-lived and as the nineties drew to a close, the amount of illegal file swapping exp...
“Software piracy is the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software. This can be done by copying, downloading, sharing, selling, or installing multiple copies onto personal or work computers.” (What is Software Piracy?) The whole idea behind software piracy is that you are purchasing a, normally, single license copy to use that company’s product on your computer. You are not just purchasing the software itself, which tends to make some people not realize that some of their actions could be a form of software piracy and not even know it.
Physical piracy-the copying and illegal sale of hard-copy CDs, videotapes, and DVDs-costs the music industry over $4 billion a year worldwide and the movie industry more than $3.5 billion. These numbers do not factor in the growing (and difficult to measure) problem of Internet piracy, in which music and movies are transferred to digital format and copies are made of the resulting computer file. Journalist Charles C. Mann explains why Internet piracy has the potential to be vastly more damaging to copyright industr...
Software piracy is the copying and selling of copyrighted software. There are many types of software that can be pirated including operating systems, application programs, as well as internet downloads including music, software, or movies. Many people do this knowing that they are partaking in something illegal; however, some people have no clue that they are breaking the law. In some cases, a person may have inadvertently purchased pirated software. The consequences of having or distributing pirated software can be serious in some cases. Software piracy is a common practice that can be easily avoided.
paid for. The pirate has a set of excuses for his actions: prices are too high;
The PC industry is just over 20 years old. In those 20 years, both the quality
In today’s technological age and consumer-driven economy, there is no doubt that media piracy and file sharing are in demand and makes a big business. Not only the so called “bootlegged” materials cost less, but most of it also managed to completely imitate the quality of the original materials. It is much easier to people to download movies or music online or buy bootlegged DVDs for 5 dollars than to watch the movie in theaters or pay for the whole CD when there is only one song that the person likes. People know about the possible consequences of these actions, but they do not have a choice especially in these times of economy recession, plus everyone nowadays is doing it, so it would not be considered such a big deal at all if they illegally download or purchase copyright materials. On the other hand if everyone is doing it, why there are still some people getting caught? Not that they should not be punished, but being put into jail and paying a fine that is ridiculously impossible to pay are just practically harsh. Maybe if those people are business tycoons of counterfeit materials, but the fact that most of those people getting caught are just ordinary people trying to be practical and doing what the rest of the world is doing which is doing these “illegal” downloading or purchasing bootlegged movies and music. The government and the entertainment industries are using ordinary people as scapegoats and have been doing draconian methods in moms, children and maybe even old people by suing them for downloading or sharing pirated materials for free, because of the fact that they are having a hard time pursuing the big time “master minds,” who are making a profit out of someone else’s work.
Abstract This paper is intended as a primer for copyright law in the form of a short story. An elementary school teacher illegitimately copies a piece of software for educational purposes and is discovered. Issues such as the fair use doctrine, copyright law, and cyberlaw are covered. The analytical section provides a realistic legal defense for the fictional situation that drives the paper.
All around the world people connected to the internet are downloading free digital content through P2P file sharing software.
Software piracy is the illegal copying of software for distribution within an organization, to friends, clubs or other groups, and also for duplication and resale. Although it may seem innocent enough to install an application on additional machines (which is also called “softloading” or “softlifting”), the profits of software companies become severely damaged. More than $11 billion is lost to piracy every year, and it is a worldwide problem. (Apple Inc.) Because software is valuable and is very easy to create a copy of it, this problem is widespread. Software piracy is a crime, and there is a copyright
With the popularity of the Internet, sales for CDs, DVDs, Movies, and many other products have increased. Along with the increase of sales has brought forth an ever increasing problem of illegal media being downloaded. Programs such as Bittorent, Kazaa, and other direct-connect networking programs have allowed the transferring of such illegal media. Downloading song files from the Internet over a free peer to peer network is the moral equivalent of shoplifting music CDs from the local mall.