Software Piracy Essay

Piracy has become a major issue in the United States. For every motion picture that has been featured in theaters also has been pirated onto the Internet the next day, and for every new musical album that is released, yet there is a free torrent file of the album within the same hour. Even though these online pirates steal music and movies from other companies and make a drastic profit, yet these “rogue” websites receive 53 billions visits a year from across the globe according to Creative America. The persistence of the thieves that break copyright laws of the productions has lead the entertainment business to place a definitive complaint to the U.S. government of the constant notion of piracy. While the notion of piracy was not left

In the global market that we leave in companies are trying to find any and everyway that they can to get ahead in their respective markets. This most of the time brings out the most innovate thinkers that can come up with a way to keep it’s company on top of their market and sometimes we see that there are companies that like to take a short cut by using non legal and malicious methods. According to Lewis, (1985), Software piracy is the illicit copying of the operating instructions and applications programs, which make computers work, is a large and growing industry. The Pirate Bay is part of a European social and political movement that opposes copyrighted content and demands that music, videos, TV shows, and other digital content be free and unrestricted. In the words of the Pirate Party, “the Pirate Bay is a unique platform for distributing culture between regular people and independent artists, and that’s something we want to preserve.”

Most of the software that is used today is purchased as a one-site license. This means that only one computer can have that software installed on in at a time. Copying or sharing this information without the use of multiple licences is seen as Software Piracy. There are many ways of preventing software piracy. Software piracy does not only affect one individual but also can affect a large group or company. Some of the effects of software piracy are; it reduces the funding for ongoing development efforts, it can limit the amount of jobs opportunities that are available to people, it also allows for other unauthorised copies of software that may contain bugs or viruses and lastly it prevents the user form getting any high quality technical support and product updates. There are too main factors/ways that can help to prevent software piracy. One way is hiding the users IP address therefor any traces of you being seen on that website are lost and therefor you cannot be hacked. You can also download software which will set up firewalls in order to prevent the user form getting hacked or getting a

Unlicensed software use continued to be a major problem in 2013. Indeed, 43 percent of the software installed on PCs around the world was not properly licensed, an uptick from 42 percent in 2011. The commercial value of the unlicensed installations was $62.7 billion. (The Compliance Gap, 2014). As we can see piracy of software and other digital media is a global problem that adversely affects many businesses and the welfare of employees and consumers.

For many years illegal file sharing and music swapping has been going on. Two very popular cases are the MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster case and the A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster case. Both cases differ in many ways however they also have similarities. A lot of music and other sorts of entertainment are being distributed for free all over the internet. What some people do not think of are the consequences that will be faced if they get caught. Not only is the distributor at risk for getting caught but those of us that download the software illegally can be charged.

First, Online Piracy hurts many people but the most important are the downloaders. People tend to not talk about the fact that not only does it hurt others, it also opens the downloader's computer and sensitive documents to threat. As said in the Info Sheet, "When you participate in peer-to-peer networks private and sensitive documents on your computer

Darrell Panethiere wrote in “The Persistence Of Piracy” on page 2 that “'Piracy refers to the activity of manufacturing unauthorised copies ('pirate copies') of protected material and dealing with such copies by way of distribution and

Because the fact that the Internet has made it so much easier to distribute software, both legally and illegally, it is extremely difficult to “cripple” the software so that it only functions on the computer of the person who purchased it. I feel that people don’t mind paying for software, but the fact that software has gotten so expensive; most people refuse to pay it. Microsoft and Adobe are a great example of software that cost anywhere from $200 - $1000 to purchase. How can the public really afford prices like that? Sure if you are a corporation and utilizing the software to produce something that will bring in money, it is understandable. I

Piracy also often introduces infrastructure and security concerns. The sites used for software and media piracy often leave visitors with malware, viruses and spyware, which can compromise private business data and

When people buy music, they get legal rights to that purchase, known as Intellectual Property (IP). But some people do not like to buy music. Whether they know it or not, they use piracy as their way to get music. They use softwares, look music up on the internet, or find somebody selling it. Piracy can be destructive to people or organizations like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). People

Online piracy is commonly referred to as a threat to businesses in the creative industries. The WTO Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (a.k.a. “the TRIPS” agreement) defines piracy as:

This statement been said, “Piracy could never be completely gotten rid of.” This is a very true statement. It did take a long time, now pirates have set sail again and this time in cyberspace (The Internet). Their vessels are no longer ships filled with gunpowder and cannons, but desktop and laptop computers. Software piracy has existed as long as software itself, but it has not had a notable effect before the late1980’s. The pirating of software just got easier as hardware became more advanced. The development of the modem has allowed the computer to transmit and receive data. Due to this technological advancement pirates (modern term Hackers) have been able to put pirated software on webpages and websites around cyberspace. These webpages and websites offer the newest and most popular games and programs available for downloading. The downloading and these pages and sites are almost

The rise of the Internet era opened the whole new market for traditional media full of opportunities as well as threats. Online piracy being one of them because the music and film industry loses £5.4bn in a year and if it was reduced by 10% it could have created up to 13 thousand jobs in the UK. There are various attempts taken to fight with online piracy; a case study of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement will be considered as well as other legislations attempting to regulate copyrights in the Internet. This

On January 23, 2003, the world’s leading computer networking equipment maker Cisco Systems, headquartered in San Jose California, filed a lawsuit against China-based Huawei Technologies and its United States subsidiaries Huawei America and FutureWei Technologies. In the lawsuit, Cisco alleged that Huawei stole intellectual property by copying its Internet Operating System (IOS) software and its copyrighted user manuals. Cisco also claimed that Huawei infringed on its patents. After numerous failed attempts to resolve these complaints directly with Huawei, which included a cease and desist letter to one of Huawei’s United Kingdom distributors, Cisco decided that a lawsuit was necessary to

Most students are aware that software piracy is a worldwide problem. According to a previous research of 100 students, which consisted of fifty-three males, forty-seven females, and eighty-nine percent under the age of twenty-five, the majority were aware of software piracy and its illegality. In figure 1, eighty-four percent of students were aware that copyright law only permits purchasers to a backup copy, ninety-four percent were aware that distributing pirated software is a felony; eighty-two percent understood