Software Piracy A Big Crime With Big

Software Piracy: A Big Crime With Big Consequences Essay, Research Paper

Software Piracy: A Big Crime With Big Consequences

Imaging for a moment that you come across an advertisement saying you can

meet up with an individual who will break into a store, disarm all of the alarms

and will hold the door open for you as you walk inside and take anything you

wish. This criminal offence occurs every day on computer systems around the

world including the internet. This is a very serious problem and is very

difficult to circumvent. Every computer user is both tempted and immersed in

software piracy in its many forms. One of the most disturbing facts behind this

crime is that many people who participate in the distribution of commercial

software don’t even know they are committing a crime. Software piracy is a very

serious and widespread crime that must be acknowledged and dealt with.

Software piracy is the unauthorized duplication and or distribution of

copyrighted programs. There are two ways to be involved in software piracy.

The first is facilitation. Facilitation is the deliberate copying of copyrighted

software and distributing it. An example would be an MIT student named David

LaMacchia. This individual served and maintained a computer that was connected

to the internet that offered it’s users more than one million dollars worth of

software ‘free of charge.’ Mr. LaMacchia was caught by the authorities and was

acquitted of this piracy due to the lack of legal standards for this crime.

Another example is off local bulletin board systems. Many are run out of the

offenders homes with just a phone line, a computer and a modem. Here members of

this service can send and receive pirated software (otherwise known as ‘warez’)

as their own pace and leisure. There are not just one or two of these bulletin

boards around there are in fact many. Most reside in large cities and the

offenders are in most cases minors. As the computer gains a more stable hold on

our society these bulletin boards are replaced by the ones that are linked to

the internet. By this individuals can anonymously put out copyrighted software

for the use of any anonymous user of the internet such as the type of system

that Mr. LaMacchia ran. The second way to be involved in software piracy is to

be on the receiving end. These individuals can be anyone. All they need is a

computer and access to a computer. In this an individual willingly breaks

copyright law and retrieves by whatever means copyrighted software. In effect

this individual steals the software for their use. Again in this case the

offenders are usually minors. Keep in mind that is it not only minors that are

committing acts of software piracy, many adults and especially companies and

corporations still pirate software but they do so at a very little profile.

There are many ways that an individual can commit software piracy. Six

different methods are of the most evident ways to pirate software. The first

and most common method of software piracy is called ‘End User Copying’ or

’softlifting.’ This type of piracy is the out right copying of a program and

giving it to a friend or a colleague. An example of this is an individual just

bought a brand new computer game from the store. They liked it so much that

they made a copy and gave it to a friend. The second form of piracy is what is

referred to as hard disk loading. This is where a computer dealer or company

copy and load unauthorized copies of software onto the hard disks or the main

storage facility on the computer they will sell. This is a more commercial

aspect of software piracy and many of these companies use this as an incentive

to sell their machines by making more software for the machine available to the

customer. The third method is becoming more popular as many more people are

getting connected to the internet. This is the downloading or sending

copyrighted/illegal software via a modem to a public or private bulletin board

system or the internet. This type of piracy is usually at no charge to the end

user and is usually open to many people. The fourth type of software piracy is

known as counterfeiting. This is the illegal duplication and sale of

copyrighted/illegal software. This can be a very complex and sophisticated way

of piracy. This can include a relatively significant effort to duplicate the

original packaging, logos and other anti-counterfeiting techniques such as

holograms. This type of piracy can also be very unsophisticated by the copying

of the software and placing different of different labels on the copied media

and then just blatantly selling it to whomever they choose. This is not just

the distributing of pirated software this is the selling of the software with a

motive for undue profit. The fifth method of software piracy is over computer

networks. A network is a series of computers

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