Software Piracy
Content
May 18
Software Piracy
By Azooz Totti
2012
A first Draft
Table of contents
2|Page
Abstract
Software is one of the essential requirements in today’s world and technological advancements and development. Software is the intellectual property of the developers or the published of software which the law protects. There are increasingly attempts to obtain this software from illegal sources in which it provided at lower prices that getting it from the original sources. These activities are involved in what is called “Software Piracy”. The term Software Piracy is one of the critical issues the companies suffer in the modern world. It is not only affects the industry of software, but also its affects the general business sectors and educational institutions. This issue continues with the huge spread and availability of personal computers and the internet comparing to the past years. Software Piracy is an illegal act as it breaches the law of copyright and deprives the publisher and developers of obtaining the full right of earning of developing and selling several products. Although, there is not a solution that could completely stop the software piracy, it can be reduced through re-instilling software piracy ethics onto the public.
Chapter 1 1.0 Introduction
The drastic development of networked systems and the internet has made the world a small village in which more users are allowed to be connected and to communicate with each other with less time, money, and efforts. The great progression on the field of electronics especially personal computers available at lower-costs made the PC more affordable and common for households. All these factors have together led to the spread of the term Software Piracy in which it become easier to conduct by individuals and businesses.
3|Page
The introduction of Personal computers has drastically facilitated in the existence of software piracy. When purchasing software, the person purchases the license, not the actual software; this license is to indicate how many times this software is valid to be used. Piracy occurs when the user makes copies of this licensed software to achieve commercial or personal goals. BSA (2006) stated that in 2007, the rate of personal computers software piracy worldwide stood at 38%. BSA has reported in 2011 that the commercial value of software piracy grew 14% globally in 2010 to record a total of $58.8 billion of lost revenues. This loss of revenue results in lower returns for stockholders, developers and employees due to the illegal distributed, copied or used unlicensed or unregistered users.
1.1.0The issue of Software Piracy
Software piracy (Known as copyright infringement of software) is the illegal, unauthorized, and the unlawful use, reproduction, or copying of software for commercial or personal use that has not been paid for or licensed. (Abu-Arafah, 2006). According to Tech Talk, 2001, software
piracy comes in several different forms; the most common are; end-user piracy, unauthorized resale, Internet piracy, and cracking. End-User Piracy: This type of piracy occurs when the user makes many copies of software without authorization. To illustrate its meaning, one copy of software has been purchased and installed on a PC then the same piece of software is installed on several different computers. Internet Piracy: This type is the widest spread which is increasingly becoming the fastest and the easiest way to obtain software that is considering a pirated. This piracy takes several different forms such as downloading or uploading software, or sending an email that is attached with a copy of illegal software.
4|Page
Unauthorized Resale: this type happens when legal copy software is copied and distributed to many personal computers and/or to customers as an authorized piece of software. That means multiple users with the same serial/product number.
Cracking: this occurs when illegal access is gained to protected software. Peer to peer (p2p) file sharing technologies have become the most
factor that facilitate the wide spread of software piracy, these technologies include bit torrents, online auction sites, etc.
2.0 Piracy: an Ethical issue
Webster’s Gollgiate Dictionary defines ethics as “the discipline dealing with what is good and what is bad with moral duty obligations”. It sometimes describes as the term that deals with what is good, and finds the appropriate ways to achieve this good. Piracy has become very common after the introduction of PC. With the arrival of PC, hardware and software was available at reasonable cost, with the development of pc, the user’s needs for software packages have increased and that has maximized the cost of software which become much more sophisticated and required more capacity. The increase in costing has maximized the activities of software piracy. (logsdon, Thompson & Reid 1994). As we mentioned more than 60 percent of people prefer to buy and download the pirate software but the majority of them do not know what is the risks of downloading or buying these software which can exposes them business because of
5|Page
The pirate software could contain of some computer viruses that can access to the secure and personal data which has have the availability to destroy the computer.
Some of this software will not work correctly at all and will fail completely or the software won’t function at all.
If the government caught people dealing with software piracy, they will pay a fine for copyright infringement.
It could make some of harmful effect for the business.
2.1 Reasons for software piracy
The ease of software piracy which is as simple as connecting to the internet, downloading and application or software and then burning it to CDs or DVDs, helps in the prevalent of the piracy activities. In addition, there are many other reasons. Many crackers of software tend to gain a copy of software, copying it and reselling it through several ways such as online auction sites or through CDs/DVDs at a low price in an attempt to increase the crackers financial gain. Others tend to steal features of pirated software in order to include them in their own products and applications. The major reason of software piracy is the cost that both individuals and organizations may be unwilling to pay for software licensing considering it expensive, or they may have financial problems while really in need for that piece of software, therefore, they get a pirated software as it can be obtained at a very low-costs or even for free.
6|Page
Some hackers perform hacking and piracy activities for entertainment as a personal challenge and to get personal satisfaction. Sometimes they hacked into applications as what is called ethical hacking to find weaknesses so the producer can fix these weaknesses and provide more secure software.
2.2 Arguments for software Piracy
There are many arguments that take the side of software piracy act and defend its practices. For example, many arguments focus on the term of software costing and prices. They argue that the software is too expensive for all users to obtain a copy; therefore it is essential to pirating this software, copying it and reselling it to consumers at lower prices for the sake of protecting them. Many critics in developing nations view the licensing fees and transfers taxes required to obtain legal software as an indirect measure that limits the technological advancements of the countries. Moreover that, Microsoft which denounce the practice of piracy act just like other market-leaders companies, it admitted that it would prefer their products to be pirated than the competitors’ since the users will eventually pay for it and will be converted to a licensed user (Abu-Arafah, 2006).
2.3 Ethical Arguments against Software Piracy
If performing piracy activities to obtain unauthorized copies of software and reselling it to customers at lower prices is accepted, then stealing jewelries and selling it to people should be accepted too. Un-doubly, this is not true. In addition, it is expected that those who performing the piracy would pay the
7|Page
profits of their sales to the publishers of the software, and that is usually not happened. Software piracy deprived the developers of software to be compensated for the time and the efforts that they have spent to get that software ready to take place at the market with the expected requirements. One example is the WinZip software that provides to users for 45 days as a demo, in which it is then copied illegally and used. (Jeff Biron, n.d).
2.4 Economical Arguments against Software Piracy
The conduct of software piracy will clearly decrease the profits that the companies expect from publishing their products in the market. This leads to less budgeting dedicated to be invested in the research and the development of more products. This can affect the customers who buy the products legally as piracy will influence the researching and the developing to enhance various products and therefore the accuracy may not be as expected for these legally users, in addition, users may tend to find alternatives and that harms the economical aspects and the company’s revenue. Moreover, the company will stop investing to develop new software since most of its software being pirated and this will result in fewer jobs and fewer technologies. Users’ trends to find
alternatives will minimize the demand hence the prices will be decreased which harms the profits of the company. A joint study by Business Software Alliance (BSA) and International Data Corporation (IDC), showed that the decrease of piracy be 10% in the coming 4 years could provide up to 2.4 million new jobs.
8|Page
2.5 Solving the issue of software piracy
The problem of software piracy takes many form and conducts in several different ways, it is a large scale problem. Although many aspects of this problem can be controlled and hence reduces the piracy activities, it is impossible to completely solve this dilemma. We believe that the easy availability of packages of software and reduced prices would significantly minimize the potential piracy act to get a piece of required software from other resources (e.g. CD or Internet). If so, users would prefer to obtain this lower-cost software from its producer-its original source- rather than getting it illegally from other sources, since the user will enjoy the services and will get information from being a registered user in which others who use the same software as unauthorized user will not. The study of this problem has showed that it is widely prevalent as people do not know it is unethical to copy and use pirated software as all the people are doing it. To reduce this problem, we believe that companies, educational institutions and even home, could play an important role to accomplish that. Companies could establish company-wide plan to stop piracy. Both companies and educational institutions can provide employees and students training and education programs about software piracy in which all its negative effects on computer industry and software development will be addressed. All people categories whatever they do and wherever they work must understand the software piracy laws, the financial and the legal impacts of software piracy.
We strongly recommend that people do not use pirated software or buying single license and use it for many computers; actually there are many
9|Page
substitutions ways for these problems which is can safe customers money, time and information rather than pirate software by the following. 1. Using freeware, shareware and open source application if the customer are not interesting with buying applications 2. Using registration numbers, such as the serial number protection. when the user want to open the program, dialog message will pop up to insert the serial numbers, if the user have the key and the key is correct after a few second with checking from internet; the user have authorized access to program; without the key the application is useless, and since the user is less likely to give out his serial numbers to others or put it on the internet, the hacker will stop to pirate the software. 3. For companies to make more secure we can use manual protection, it could be by using games or questions, when the program is started the dialog message have some question shall be answered or a small puzzle shall be solved with some techniques and tips from manuals.
Chapter 2
3.1 Ethical decisions have extended consequences
The act of software piracy may have extended negative consequences that are not hard to be realized. These piracy activities could bring the entire computer industry at loss as pirates will affect the quality of software through obtaining it illegally, copying it and then re-selling it to customers. Therefore, companies will suffer of low revenue that they really deserve of the published software. This leads to further issues for customers as well. Despite the fact that many customers will obtain the pirated software at lower-prices, these customers may not get the
10 | P a g e
essential services, information, and upgrades that legally users will enjoy. However, the effects of pirated software on users are many. According to Adan Leinss, pirated software usually contains damaged or incomplete contents that may function improperly or may harm the computer productivity, moreover that, users with illegal software cannot often get access to product support, product upgrades, documentation, etc. In addition, Adan Leinss stated that pirated software can include viruses which harm the users’ computer hard drive. The consequences of piracy act may lead the companies to stop the research of enhancing their products or developing new technologies as their products are being pirated and copied, thus, the software development field will be greatly affected. However, the effects of software piracy will be greater on small companies; software piracy can destroy the revenue of those companies in the industry that they successfully found a place in. Without revenues, small companies will face a lack of the
requested resources to develop new software which decreases the chances of making profits. These companies will suffer economical issues and make them unstable in the industry and leads to the Bankruptcy and closure of the company just because software pirates have decided to steal their software and make it available at low prices and even free for others. As stated before, software piracy has negative consequences and may harm big and small companies, users, computer industry, and software development; hence, it should be combated and reduced.
11 | P a g e
Conclusion
It is important for individuals and companies to understand the terms and conditions and to take into consideration the exits licensing agreements in order to know their rights when installing, distributing and using software. Software Piracy deprives the owner and developers of software to enjoy their lawful right to profit from it. Nowadays, with the ease of piracy and the great availability of pirated software, it can be expected that people will prefer obtaining it rather than paying for licensing to get this piece of software, forgetting it is unethical as many people are practicing piracy and using pirated software. It is obviously that these types of activities are illegal since it involves illegally copied software that being resold to others.
References
1. Ahmad Abu-Arafah, 2006. “The Ethical and Economical Arguments against software Piracy”. 2. Software Piracy: An Ethical Dilemma, 2008. Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, the University of Melbourne, October 15, 2008, pp. 2-11. 3. Tech Talk, 2001. What is Software Piracy ?. The Olrc News, Spring/Summer 2001. 4. Cris V. Ewell, 2004. “Software Piracy and the Ethical Responsibilities of security professionals”. The Global Voice of Information Security, the ISSA Journal, June 2004. 5. Andre Armstrong & Vic Luu, 2002. “Basic Considerations for preventing software piracy”. Rainbow Technologies, inc. 2002. 6. Adam Leinss, n.d. “The Effects of Software Piracy on Consumers and Software Developers”.
12 | P a g e
Software Piracy
By Azooz Totti
2012
A first Draft
Table of contents
2|Page
Abstract
Software is one of the essential requirements in today’s world and technological advancements and development. Software is the intellectual property of the developers or the published of software which the law protects. There are increasingly attempts to obtain this software from illegal sources in which it provided at lower prices that getting it from the original sources. These activities are involved in what is called “Software Piracy”. The term Software Piracy is one of the critical issues the companies suffer in the modern world. It is not only affects the industry of software, but also its affects the general business sectors and educational institutions. This issue continues with the huge spread and availability of personal computers and the internet comparing to the past years. Software Piracy is an illegal act as it breaches the law of copyright and deprives the publisher and developers of obtaining the full right of earning of developing and selling several products. Although, there is not a solution that could completely stop the software piracy, it can be reduced through re-instilling software piracy ethics onto the public.
Chapter 1 1.0 Introduction
The drastic development of networked systems and the internet has made the world a small village in which more users are allowed to be connected and to communicate with each other with less time, money, and efforts. The great progression on the field of electronics especially personal computers available at lower-costs made the PC more affordable and common for households. All these factors have together led to the spread of the term Software Piracy in which it become easier to conduct by individuals and businesses.
3|Page
The introduction of Personal computers has drastically facilitated in the existence of software piracy. When purchasing software, the person purchases the license, not the actual software; this license is to indicate how many times this software is valid to be used. Piracy occurs when the user makes copies of this licensed software to achieve commercial or personal goals. BSA (2006) stated that in 2007, the rate of personal computers software piracy worldwide stood at 38%. BSA has reported in 2011 that the commercial value of software piracy grew 14% globally in 2010 to record a total of $58.8 billion of lost revenues. This loss of revenue results in lower returns for stockholders, developers and employees due to the illegal distributed, copied or used unlicensed or unregistered users.
1.1.0The issue of Software Piracy
Software piracy (Known as copyright infringement of software) is the illegal, unauthorized, and the unlawful use, reproduction, or copying of software for commercial or personal use that has not been paid for or licensed. (Abu-Arafah, 2006). According to Tech Talk, 2001, software
piracy comes in several different forms; the most common are; end-user piracy, unauthorized resale, Internet piracy, and cracking. End-User Piracy: This type of piracy occurs when the user makes many copies of software without authorization. To illustrate its meaning, one copy of software has been purchased and installed on a PC then the same piece of software is installed on several different computers. Internet Piracy: This type is the widest spread which is increasingly becoming the fastest and the easiest way to obtain software that is considering a pirated. This piracy takes several different forms such as downloading or uploading software, or sending an email that is attached with a copy of illegal software.
4|Page
Unauthorized Resale: this type happens when legal copy software is copied and distributed to many personal computers and/or to customers as an authorized piece of software. That means multiple users with the same serial/product number.
Cracking: this occurs when illegal access is gained to protected software. Peer to peer (p2p) file sharing technologies have become the most
factor that facilitate the wide spread of software piracy, these technologies include bit torrents, online auction sites, etc.
2.0 Piracy: an Ethical issue
Webster’s Gollgiate Dictionary defines ethics as “the discipline dealing with what is good and what is bad with moral duty obligations”. It sometimes describes as the term that deals with what is good, and finds the appropriate ways to achieve this good. Piracy has become very common after the introduction of PC. With the arrival of PC, hardware and software was available at reasonable cost, with the development of pc, the user’s needs for software packages have increased and that has maximized the cost of software which become much more sophisticated and required more capacity. The increase in costing has maximized the activities of software piracy. (logsdon, Thompson & Reid 1994). As we mentioned more than 60 percent of people prefer to buy and download the pirate software but the majority of them do not know what is the risks of downloading or buying these software which can exposes them business because of
5|Page
The pirate software could contain of some computer viruses that can access to the secure and personal data which has have the availability to destroy the computer.
Some of this software will not work correctly at all and will fail completely or the software won’t function at all.
If the government caught people dealing with software piracy, they will pay a fine for copyright infringement.
It could make some of harmful effect for the business.
2.1 Reasons for software piracy
The ease of software piracy which is as simple as connecting to the internet, downloading and application or software and then burning it to CDs or DVDs, helps in the prevalent of the piracy activities. In addition, there are many other reasons. Many crackers of software tend to gain a copy of software, copying it and reselling it through several ways such as online auction sites or through CDs/DVDs at a low price in an attempt to increase the crackers financial gain. Others tend to steal features of pirated software in order to include them in their own products and applications. The major reason of software piracy is the cost that both individuals and organizations may be unwilling to pay for software licensing considering it expensive, or they may have financial problems while really in need for that piece of software, therefore, they get a pirated software as it can be obtained at a very low-costs or even for free.
6|Page
Some hackers perform hacking and piracy activities for entertainment as a personal challenge and to get personal satisfaction. Sometimes they hacked into applications as what is called ethical hacking to find weaknesses so the producer can fix these weaknesses and provide more secure software.
2.2 Arguments for software Piracy
There are many arguments that take the side of software piracy act and defend its practices. For example, many arguments focus on the term of software costing and prices. They argue that the software is too expensive for all users to obtain a copy; therefore it is essential to pirating this software, copying it and reselling it to consumers at lower prices for the sake of protecting them. Many critics in developing nations view the licensing fees and transfers taxes required to obtain legal software as an indirect measure that limits the technological advancements of the countries. Moreover that, Microsoft which denounce the practice of piracy act just like other market-leaders companies, it admitted that it would prefer their products to be pirated than the competitors’ since the users will eventually pay for it and will be converted to a licensed user (Abu-Arafah, 2006).
2.3 Ethical Arguments against Software Piracy
If performing piracy activities to obtain unauthorized copies of software and reselling it to customers at lower prices is accepted, then stealing jewelries and selling it to people should be accepted too. Un-doubly, this is not true. In addition, it is expected that those who performing the piracy would pay the
7|Page
profits of their sales to the publishers of the software, and that is usually not happened. Software piracy deprived the developers of software to be compensated for the time and the efforts that they have spent to get that software ready to take place at the market with the expected requirements. One example is the WinZip software that provides to users for 45 days as a demo, in which it is then copied illegally and used. (Jeff Biron, n.d).
2.4 Economical Arguments against Software Piracy
The conduct of software piracy will clearly decrease the profits that the companies expect from publishing their products in the market. This leads to less budgeting dedicated to be invested in the research and the development of more products. This can affect the customers who buy the products legally as piracy will influence the researching and the developing to enhance various products and therefore the accuracy may not be as expected for these legally users, in addition, users may tend to find alternatives and that harms the economical aspects and the company’s revenue. Moreover, the company will stop investing to develop new software since most of its software being pirated and this will result in fewer jobs and fewer technologies. Users’ trends to find
alternatives will minimize the demand hence the prices will be decreased which harms the profits of the company. A joint study by Business Software Alliance (BSA) and International Data Corporation (IDC), showed that the decrease of piracy be 10% in the coming 4 years could provide up to 2.4 million new jobs.
8|Page
2.5 Solving the issue of software piracy
The problem of software piracy takes many form and conducts in several different ways, it is a large scale problem. Although many aspects of this problem can be controlled and hence reduces the piracy activities, it is impossible to completely solve this dilemma. We believe that the easy availability of packages of software and reduced prices would significantly minimize the potential piracy act to get a piece of required software from other resources (e.g. CD or Internet). If so, users would prefer to obtain this lower-cost software from its producer-its original source- rather than getting it illegally from other sources, since the user will enjoy the services and will get information from being a registered user in which others who use the same software as unauthorized user will not. The study of this problem has showed that it is widely prevalent as people do not know it is unethical to copy and use pirated software as all the people are doing it. To reduce this problem, we believe that companies, educational institutions and even home, could play an important role to accomplish that. Companies could establish company-wide plan to stop piracy. Both companies and educational institutions can provide employees and students training and education programs about software piracy in which all its negative effects on computer industry and software development will be addressed. All people categories whatever they do and wherever they work must understand the software piracy laws, the financial and the legal impacts of software piracy.
We strongly recommend that people do not use pirated software or buying single license and use it for many computers; actually there are many
9|Page
substitutions ways for these problems which is can safe customers money, time and information rather than pirate software by the following. 1. Using freeware, shareware and open source application if the customer are not interesting with buying applications 2. Using registration numbers, such as the serial number protection. when the user want to open the program, dialog message will pop up to insert the serial numbers, if the user have the key and the key is correct after a few second with checking from internet; the user have authorized access to program; without the key the application is useless, and since the user is less likely to give out his serial numbers to others or put it on the internet, the hacker will stop to pirate the software. 3. For companies to make more secure we can use manual protection, it could be by using games or questions, when the program is started the dialog message have some question shall be answered or a small puzzle shall be solved with some techniques and tips from manuals.
Chapter 2
3.1 Ethical decisions have extended consequences
The act of software piracy may have extended negative consequences that are not hard to be realized. These piracy activities could bring the entire computer industry at loss as pirates will affect the quality of software through obtaining it illegally, copying it and then re-selling it to customers. Therefore, companies will suffer of low revenue that they really deserve of the published software. This leads to further issues for customers as well. Despite the fact that many customers will obtain the pirated software at lower-prices, these customers may not get the
10 | P a g e
essential services, information, and upgrades that legally users will enjoy. However, the effects of pirated software on users are many. According to Adan Leinss, pirated software usually contains damaged or incomplete contents that may function improperly or may harm the computer productivity, moreover that, users with illegal software cannot often get access to product support, product upgrades, documentation, etc. In addition, Adan Leinss stated that pirated software can include viruses which harm the users’ computer hard drive. The consequences of piracy act may lead the companies to stop the research of enhancing their products or developing new technologies as their products are being pirated and copied, thus, the software development field will be greatly affected. However, the effects of software piracy will be greater on small companies; software piracy can destroy the revenue of those companies in the industry that they successfully found a place in. Without revenues, small companies will face a lack of the
requested resources to develop new software which decreases the chances of making profits. These companies will suffer economical issues and make them unstable in the industry and leads to the Bankruptcy and closure of the company just because software pirates have decided to steal their software and make it available at low prices and even free for others. As stated before, software piracy has negative consequences and may harm big and small companies, users, computer industry, and software development; hence, it should be combated and reduced.
11 | P a g e
Conclusion
It is important for individuals and companies to understand the terms and conditions and to take into consideration the exits licensing agreements in order to know their rights when installing, distributing and using software. Software Piracy deprives the owner and developers of software to enjoy their lawful right to profit from it. Nowadays, with the ease of piracy and the great availability of pirated software, it can be expected that people will prefer obtaining it rather than paying for licensing to get this piece of software, forgetting it is unethical as many people are practicing piracy and using pirated software. It is obviously that these types of activities are illegal since it involves illegally copied software that being resold to others.
References
1. Ahmad Abu-Arafah, 2006. “The Ethical and Economical Arguments against software Piracy”. 2. Software Piracy: An Ethical Dilemma, 2008. Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, the University of Melbourne, October 15, 2008, pp. 2-11. 3. Tech Talk, 2001. What is Software Piracy ?. The Olrc News, Spring/Summer 2001. 4. Cris V. Ewell, 2004. “Software Piracy and the Ethical Responsibilities of security professionals”. The Global Voice of Information Security, the ISSA Journal, June 2004. 5. Andre Armstrong & Vic Luu, 2002. “Basic Considerations for preventing software piracy”. Rainbow Technologies, inc. 2002. 6. Adam Leinss, n.d. “The Effects of Software Piracy on Consumers and Software Developers”.
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