are. There are to consequences to software piracy. Piracy not only hurts business but it hurts the legal owners of software. By stealing software the creators of the software cannot recover their losses nor can they make their program better. "Piracy harms all software publishers, regardless of their size. Software publishers spend years developing software for the public to use. A portion of every dollar spent in purchasing the original software funnelled back into research and development so that better, more advanced software products can be produced. When you purchase pirated software your money goes directly into the pockets of the pirates instead (Microsoft) ." This excerpt is from a booklet released by the Microsoft Corporation and is about software licensing and piracy. This excerpt accurately displays the truth. Not only is the offender hurt by pirating but every that has legally purchased the product is being affected as well. By pirating software you do not get the support that would normally come with a program. Nor do you get the manuals that explain the proper use of the program. But the consequences can be also legally severe. An organization called the Software Publisher's Association (S.P.A.) has devoted their time to cracking down software piracy commercially and on the internet. The S.P.A. is the leader in software piracy prosecution. They organization campaigns for individuals to report piracy to them and then on behalf of the companies that are affected the S.P.A. takes legal action against those they see that are committing a gross violation of the copyright laws. One such business was a company in Winnipeg called Microplay. As I mentioned before the S.P.A. on behalf of its members sued the owner and proprietor of Microplay for the rental of software to its members. This is just one action of many that the S.P.A. spearheads. Don't think that major companies and business are affected by the crackdo...
