Software Piracy

Software piracy is the illegal distribution or the reproduction of software applications for personal or business use. Its a valid statement for the intrusion of offending the copyright practices as individuals who copy software for a friend is an unlawful act, this is when people who copy software without the appropriate licenses thus making an infringement on copyright.

There are many different forms of software piracy here are just some of the methods used by many offenders these include:

end-user piracy- When users copy software without appropriate licensing for each copy.

pre-installed software-When a computer manufacturer takes one copy of software and illegally installs it on more than one computer.

counterfeiting-When illegal copies of software are made and distributed in packaging that reproduces the manufacturer's packaging.

The graph shows a range of software's that have been cracked  and thus in some instances such as Adobe and Microsoft 2 of the worlds giant software companies have been losing sales to software piracy with piracy taking over all its main profits the company is losing market share.

Software pirates not only steal from the companies that make the software, but with less money for research and development of new software, all users are hurt. To prevent software piracy always buy software from a licensed dealer thus check the end user license agreement.

The penalties of being caught for piracy include both legal and financial penalties such as imprisonment up to 5 years, felony charges up to $250,000 worth of damages and significant loss to the existing company and a loss in reputation.

Piracy not only hurt companies or individuals but also the whole domestic economy i.e. a loss in the tax revenues that would usually benefit the communities thus the welfare of its people, legitimate software users i.e. the process cost of trying to stop the trafficking and burning of pirated material. One upper hand effect of piracy software users is that there is a high risk that the pirated material may contain a virus thus they are worse off buying the software themselves LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!