The Effects of Software Piracy on Society and the Economy

Piracy has always been an issue for intellectual property owners. Piracy existed even as early as the 1500’s. In one famous instance, Renaissance artist Marcantonio Raimondi copied some of Albrecht Dürer’s works and claimed it was his own (Gambino, 2011). Politicians and content creators try to combat piracy with laws and lawsuits, but people engaging in piracy remain active and elusive. However, the development of the Internet has exacerbated this issue. Technological advancements, specifically the advancements in file sharing, have made the exchange of information extremely inexpensive, quick, and easy. People have direct access to unauthorized copies of millions of movies and songs due to programs such as Napster and Limewire. Thus, illegal

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.”

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.

In this paper we are going to examine why personal morality is an oxymoron and how a moral system is analogous to a game. Then we are going to analyze how the ethical issue of software piracy is seen from the notion of common moral system according to Gert.

It was previously mentioned, by Adams, how America should not wage war against the Barbary states, unless, America had plans of fighting them forever. While Adam’s words were not heeded, they rang true. From the ten years after the first Barbary War, to hundreds of years after the Barbary Wars, there is still piracy. Modern Day Piracy is commanded by Somali fisherman who attack cargo ships that travel along Somalia and the Gulf of Aden. The Somalian Fisherman first struck in the year of 1990, while their numbers have declined after 2012, there are still Somali Pirates. Some of the countries that have been attacked by the modern day pirates include Hong Kong, India, Liberia, Kenya, Taiwan, Denmark, North Korea, The United States, and numerous

business software in the United States was obtained illegally, which 30 percent of the piracy

This report shows that digital piracy can reduce the growth of digital content. However it’s also encouraged many positives

Peter Singer suggests based on the article that it may be morally right to pirate under certain circumstances.

Turmoil soon follows when the issue of piracy is brought into light. Piracy is defined as the act of downloading others work illegally, which includes but is not restricted to: movies, software, music and books. The music industry constantly sparks this discussion among the masses for obvious reasons. Those opposing mainly being the consumers, whose connection is strictly enjoying the work put before them, rather than benefiting financially in a discernible way. Using the term industry to describe the active relationship of business and money embedded into our abstract concept of society. Only when downloading is done for free does the question arise; is this right?

Software has a big part in cybersecurity and it is tampered with quite frequently. When software is stolen, copied, or even borrowed it is considered pirating. Computer software is a "written expression that is protected by United States copyright laws." (Marshall). These written expressions are protected by the federal and state laws which were made for them (Marshall). Software pirating is illegal, and in the United States, if somebody is caught pirating software the government has made software pirating a felony rather than a misdemeanor (Marshall). Although the United States government makes pirating illegal, the American software developers do not make much of an effort, if

Computer programs are valuable property and therefore subject to theft from the computer system. However, it is not allowed to copy software, or software piracy, is also the main form of theft. Software piracy by employees of the company are extensive, resulting in legal action by the Software Publishers Association, an industry association software developers, as compared to the major companies are not allowed to make a copy of approved programmes

We all know that downloading pirated music and films is illegal, but what exactly is it? The term piracy refers to the copying and selling of music, films and other media illegally; in other words you are copying and selling copyrighted media without the permission of the original owner (NiDirect, n.d.). With the massive growth of the internet and its ability to store and capture vast amounts of data, we have become much more reliable on information systems in all aspects of life, but it does not come without the risk of information technology being used unethically. With the number of IT breakthroughs in recent years “the importance of ethics and human values has been underemphasised” often resulting in various consequences. Not surprisingly one of the many public concerns about the ethical use of IT is that “millions of people have downloaded music and movies at no charge and in apparent violation of copyright laws at tremendous expense to the owners of those copyrights” (Reynolds, Ethics in Information Technology, 2015). This essay covers the ethical issues of downloading pirated music and films and the impact it has on music corporations and recording and film companies.

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

Some people believes that software licensing restrict the technology growth due to conditions of license and giving the students unlimited authorities to entry the computer could cultivate constructive and civilized conduct of them. Computer securities is a puzzle, it will attracted people who is curious about puzzles, so without computer security it will reducing the hackers who is break in by curiosity. Finally, it will make a conclusion and recommendation as to whether software licensing is antisocial or not, ethical teaching is effectiveness or not and can eliminating the computer security reduce the computer fraud. It should be noted that the report is limited to evaluating situation from software licensing, ethical teaching and reducing computer measures, in accordance with instructions.