ered socially acceptable, and if the law is not enforced.Another excuse often heard is that software costs too much, or the notion that one would never go to the store and buy a certain program so the writers are not really losing out on a sale. But if we translate these excuses elsewhere, such as the automotive industry, we see how ridiculous they are. Stealing a Rolls Royce is not acceptable even if one would never buy one to begin with.Businesses will illegally use software simply to cut costs. It is cheaper to purchase a 10 user license and place a program on 20 computers, than it is a 20 user license for those same 20 computers. It is possible that some large companies with many users and computers could lose track of one or two licenses, but anything more than that is highly unlikely as most companies have strict inventory procedures for expenses as costly as software can be.Among the computer elite, it has almost become the accepted practice not to pay for software. Hillary Rosner claims Much of the traffic in illegal software online, and offline, is grounded not only in a quest for bragging rights but also ... [from] a sense of insider entitlement. Paying is for the dopes who don't know how to get stuff for free. It has become the in thing for insiders or hackers to have as much unpaid for software as possible - whether it is needed, used, or even wanted.All information should be free! This is the cry of one group of computer professionals who claim that copyright laws only stifle the distribution of ideas, and that this leads to monopolies and unhealthy economic practices. Whether this is just a rationalization for piracy or a legitimate claim against the software industry will probably never be known.The Statistics Of TheftIt seems that everyone has a statistic for the amount of piracy that occurs. Unfortunately this is not a phenomenon that is isolated to the US, it has also affected programmers from across the globe....
