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Software Piracy
Software Piracy
1. INTRODUCTION
Software piracy is the mislicensing, unauthorized reproduction and illegal
distribution of software, whether for business or personal use. Most retail
programs are licensed for use at just one computer site or for use by only one
user at any time. By buying the software, you become a licensed user rather
than an owner. You are allowed to make copies of the program for backup
purposes, but it is against the law to give copies to friends and colleagues.
Richard Stallman and the GNU Project have criticized the use of the word
"piracy" in these situations, saying that publishers use the word to refer to
"copying they don't approve of" and that "they [publishers] imply that it is
ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and
murdering the people on them."
According to the Fifth Annual BSA and IDC Global Software Piracy
Study, by the end of 2007 there were more than one billion PCs installed around
the world—nearly half of which contained pirated software. Worldwide revenue
losses due to software piracy were $48billion that same year, an increase of
20% from the preceding year. Whether intentional or not, a vast amount of
revenue is lost to piracy and diverted from software companies and local
governments. Revenue that otherwise would be reinvested in R&D to develop
and improve legitimate software programs simply does not reach software
publishers. This paper discusses the causes and consequences of software
piracy, and presents software developers with a way
to protect their Intellectual Property and increase revenues,including guidelines
for evaluating software digital rights management (DRM) solutions
2. Client-server Overuse:
• Occurs when too many employees on a network use a central copy of a
program at the same time.
3. Internet Piracy:
Internet Piracy occurs when there is an electronic transfer of copyrighted
software. If system operators and/or users upload or download copyrighted
software and materials onto or from bulletin boards or the Internet for others to
copy and use without the proper license. Often hackers will distribute or sell the
hacked software or cracked keys. The developer does not receive any money for
5. Software Counterfeiting:
• The illegal duplication and sale of copyrighted material with the intent of
directly imitating the copyrighted product.
6. CD-R Piracy:
The illegal copying of software using CD-R recording technology
7. Download piracy:
• The uploading of software onto an Internet site for anyone to download a
copy.
8. Soft lifting:
• Occurs when a person (or organization) purchases a single licensed copy
of a software program and installs it onto several computers, in violation
of the terms of the license agreement.
Aside from security holes, using outdated pirated software can cause
users to encounter bugs and glitches, leading to lost work, lost time and
frustration. The hacks used to run pirated software can also interfere with
software operation, such as preventing a program from accessing online
features in order to avoid detection. In addition to problems with the
software itself, pirated programs lack a warranty and access to customer
Software piracy comes in four common forms. The first is end user
piracy, and it occurs when users of software install the software on more
machines than they are entitled to under their license agreements. The second is
hard disk loading, and it occurs when computer dealers install illegal copies of
software onto computers prior to their sale. The third is software counterfeiting,
and it involves the illegal reproduction, and subsequent sale of software in a
form that is nearly identical to the original product. The fourth is Internet
piracy, and it occurs when individuals place unauthorized copies of software on
the Internet for download.
Remediation
Indian courts can take a variety of measures designed to grant relief to copyright
holders whose rights have been infringed. One of these measures is ordering
that all infringing copies--including master copies--be impounded and
destroyed. Another way that courts grant relief to copyright holders is through
monetary compensation, which can consist of monetary damages, statutory
damages, court costs and attorney fees.
Unless otherwise stated, most software licensure agreements allow you to place
one copy on a single computer and make a second copy for backup purposes.
Software piracy comes in many different forms. The three most common type
are End- User Piracy, Internet Piracy and Reseller Piracy.
a. End-User Piracy
End-User Piracy, sometimes referred to as soft-lifting copying, is prevalent in
the workplace. To illustrate, one copy of software has been purchased for a
particular machine and that same piece of software is installed on several
different computers without the proper documentation (multiple site licensures).
In some cases, employees will also install that same piece of software on their
home computers. In addition to installing one software application on several
different computer systems, some organizations/businesses are also guilty of not
reporting the proper number of stations that will actually be using a particular
software application. End-user piracy also deals with individuals swapping
copies of software programs with friends or family members.
b. Internet Piracy
Internet piracy is rapidly becoming the fastest and easiest way to receive pirated
software. Many companies allow consumers to download software from the
Internet. This eliminates the need to make several trips to the store or sending
out copies of software on CD-ROM or floppy disk. However, these simple and
c. Reseller Piracy
Reseller piracy, also known as counterfeiting and hard disk loading, happens
when a legal copy of software is duplicated and distributed on a massive
amount of personal computers and/or to consumers as a legal software
application. This type of piracy can be very difficult to identify due to the very
sophisticated manner in which the software is duplicated and presented to the
individual and/or organization.
A lot of people cited the cost of games as a major reason for pirating.
Many were kids with no cash and lots of time to play games, but many were
not,” wrote Harris. Postiche’s games are priced between $19-23, and Harris said
that he was surprised that so many people thought that was too high.
Although there were many and varied complaints about tech support,
game stability, bugs and system requirements, it was interesting to hear so many
complaints about actual game design and gameplay, Harris said. Many people
agreed that though today’s games look fantastic, they “got boring too quickly,
were too derivative, and had gameplay issues. Another quality complaint:
Demos are too short and people feel that they’re often not representative of the
final product. People don’t like DRM, we knew that, but the extent to which
DRM is turning away people who have no other complaints is possibly
misunderstood. If you wanted to change ONE thing to get more pirates to buy
games, scrapping DRM is it.
The global study analysed 270 websites and peer-to-peer networks, 108
software downloads, and 155 CDs or DVDs, and it interviewed 2,077
consumers and 258 IT managers or chief information officers in Brazil, China,
Germany, India, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the
United States. Researchers found that of counterfeit software that does not come
with the computer, 45 percent comes from the Internet, and 78 percent of this
software downloaded from websites or peer-to-peer networks included some
type of spyware, while 36 percent contained Trojans and adware.
The IDC study, titled “The Dangerous World of Counterfeit and Pirated
Software,” was released today as part of Microsoft’s “Play It Safe” campaign, a
global initiative to bring awareness to issues related to software piracy.
The most widely used method is the license key; code that is built into an
application to require a valid key to unlock the software. This key can be
distributed via packaging or some other online mechanism. There are a variety
of tool kits available to allow corporations to easily build this capability into
their products. Just search the Web for "software licensing toolkits" and you'll
be busy for a few days wading through options.
Some shopping cart providers, such as Digital River Inc., include these
kinds of licensing capabilities, offering an end-to-end method for everything
from hosting a store, to distributing software, to managing licensing keys (so
you don't have to). But be ready to part with a percentage of your sales for that
privilege.
As mentioned earlier, the top level of the taxonomy yields the classes of
legal, ethical and technical anti-piracy measures. Each of these classes has one
or two associated means of preventing piracy. Following on from these means,
the methods can be more finely separated, to the point where each example
system for piracy prevention can be assigned to a single category.
a. Legal Measures
The law prevents piracy by creating a fear of the consequences that being
caught pirating will bring. Legal systems in the United Kingdom, the United
States of America, and countries that have inherited much of their legal systems
from these two countries and their earlier origins provide legislation to allow
prosecution of pirates through copyright, software patents (Nichols 1999), and
software licensing. To impose a fear of consequences, there must be some form
of liability for the act of software piracy and this liability must be able to be
proven in a court of law. The liability may rest with the pirate, the provider of
the distribution channel, the end-user, or a combination of these (Stern 1996).
Historically, copyright evolved out of the printing revolution that followed
Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press. Copyright law is based almost
entirely around this “print paradigm” and its associated concepts of the
permanence of a publication and its repeated availability.
b. Ethical Measures
Pointing out the ethical issues of software piracy to members of the piracy
supply chain is another way to counter piracy. Pfleeger suggests that the “right
to fair compensation” is a basic principle of “universal” ethics (Pfleeger 1997).
If we consider that purchasing software is the only fair compensation for the
authors and distributors of that software, then software piracy is in breach of
this set of ethics.
14. SOLUTIONS
• Ensure that people who work in production, marketing, and management are paid
for the time and effort they put in.
• Apply existing laws, rules, and/or guidelines or develop new ones, to protect
copyright owners, but also to protect fair use, reasonable public access, and the
opportunity to use new technologies to the fullest to provide new services.
This system is of course vulnerable to key loss and assumes that all users
of a given piece of software have a public key certificate issued by a trusted
certification .
Although most computer users today are aware that unauthorized use and
duplication of software is illegal, many show a general disregard for the
importance of treating software as valuable intellectual property: Over half of
the world’s personal computer users — 57 percent — admit to pirating
software. Thirty-one percent say they do it “all of the time,” “most of the time,”
or “occasionally,” and another 26 percent admit to having stolen software, but
only “rarely.” These are among the findings of a survey of nearly 15,000
computer users across 33 countries conducted as part of the ninth annual BSA
Global Software Piracy Study.
According to the BSA (Business Software Alliance) and IDC 6th Annual
Global Software Piracy Study, the retail value of unlicensed software —
representing revenue “losses” to software companies — broke the $50 billion
level for the first time in 2008. Worldwide losses grew by 11 percent to $53
billion. Excluding the effect of exchange rates, losses grew by 5 percent to
$50.2 billion.
Pirating software you don't own is always illegal. But there are times
when you do own software that you can't access without pirating it. The cruel
irony is that in those times, you're probably more at risk of getting slapped with
a lawsuit than real, actual pirates. Here's a guide to pirating like a pro to get
back what's rightfully yours.
Nothing could be further from the truth. According to industry statistics, illegal
software use costs publishers worldwide nearly $48 billion a year in lost
revenues, with more than $8 billion lost in the North America alone. In Central
and Eastern Europe, an average of 68% of the software in use is illegal. In some
Asian and Eastern European markets, over 88% of software is unlicensed.
On the contrary, the price publishers pay for software copy protection is
negligible compared to the losses they incur through the pirating of their
software. In fact, the vast majority of cases have shown that investment in
protection is offset entirely by increased sales and profit. By protecting their
software and thereby increasing their revenues, publishers can afford to supply
better software at more competitive prices. True, not everyone who copies
software today would buy it tomorrow if it were available only in a protected
format. But, the ensured quality, support and functionality that comes with a
manufacturer’s copy is generally well worth an incremental fee.
The new, more sophisticated types of software copy protection in no way hinder
legitimate end-users, but instead work to benefit them. One important reason for
this is because protection safeguards the integrity of the software; the end-user
is assured that the software cannot be tampered with in any way. Additionally,
higher revenues for developers mean that down the line, users will benefit from
better, higher quality software. Large organizations are legally liable for the
software they purchase and have a clear interest in preventing the unauthorized
distribution of that software. Often, the users themselves request that the
software be protected, to ensure that it won’t be used illegally, thus preventing
future litigation.
Only the first part of this myth is true: any software protection system can be
cracked, just as any lock can be picked or any door can be broken. However, the
aim of software copy protection is to provide protection for a reasonable period
of time. Software cannot be protected forever, but it can definitely be protected
long enough (i.e., until the next version of the software product is released).
This new software version should again be protected, with a strong and field-
proven protection technology that has also been improved in parallel, thus
ensuring a long and profitable sales life for the protected software application.
There has yet to be a realistic solution to the problem of piracy that meets
both the needs of the software vendor and the end user. Some solutions were
serial keys and digital rights management (DRM). Many software companies
however, have discarded the use of DRM as many users found it to be
irritating. With such a negative reaction from users to DRM open source
proponents have noted that if software companies adopted an open source
license they would no longer have to worry about software piracy (Is Open
Source). Pirated copies of software, including downloaded movies, music and
more, affect everyone. These illegal copies are hurting the software companies
and are making everything more expensive for the end users. As software
companies endeavour to make copying software more difficult in an effort to
stop piracy, software may become so expensive that the average user will no
longer be able to afford to purchase software.
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