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Software Piracy on the

Software Piracy on the There has been extensive growth in the number of people accessing the Internet. For this reason, the Internet has become a necessity to the American population, shown in the estimated 50 million users on-line in the U.S. The ease of Internet access has increased along with the advances in technology. Along with price and availability, changes in the web and web browsers have allowed pirates to offer illegal copies of software that can be downloaded by even the most uneducated user. Most Internet piracy is accomplished in the home or the office, with very little risk of being caught. The very nature of the Internet requires the user to rely on will power and morality to resist temptation to download pirated software. How people meet this challenge may help determine the future of the software industry. Worldwide, more than 40% of all software in use is illegally copied. In 1997, piracy cost the software industry $11.4 billion in lost revenues, with losses exceeding $2.8 billion in the U.S. alone. Approximately 27 percent of the business software in the U.S. are obtained illegally. That translates into fewer jobs, less innovation, and higher costs for consumers. "Online copyright theft is rising to epidemic proportions, threatening the creative industries while inhibiting the development of electronic commerce," reported Robert Holleyman, President and CEO of the Business Software Alliance (BSA). The economic impact of this activity extends beyond the software industry, it can harm economies worldwide by greatly diminishing tax revenues, and substantial numbers of lost jobs There are many ways used by pirates to commit their crimes: ¨ E-mail. An exchange of software via e-mail communications eliminating the need to copy programs onto physical media. ¨ Internet Chat. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) allows real-time, interactive "chatting.” IRC groups have established a market to advertise the most recent or temporary pirated software sites. ¨ Mail Order. An equivalent to traditional mail order, the Internet adds a new way of locating customers and products. Buyers can browse, select, and order pirated software on-line. ¨ FTP. File Transfer Protocol sites allow the transfer of pirated software through uploading and downloading. Legitimate companies, government, and educational agencies are often the victims of pirates, who use others' computers as temporary distribution sites. ¨ Serial Numbers. Many web sites list thousands of serial numbers, which are needed by users of pirated software in order to install or operate the program. ¨ World Wide Web. Changing of the web has let pirates create home pages providing links to download sites. Some sites include a web page and ftp site; both offering and providing pirated software, others link directly to remote hosts. “Warez” is a slang term for pirated software. There are over 2 million web-sites offering, linking or referencing "warez,” from roughly 100,000 warez sites two years ago, to 900,000 last year. There has been a great effort in the industry to fight software piracy, unfortunately pirates seem to have the ability to adjust to these changes in technology. The industry has started massive investigations in efforts to fight Internet piracy, including working with law enforcement agencies and online service providers to shut down illegal sites. According to Robert Holleyman, BSA (Business Software Alliance) takes down hundreds of illegal sites each month. For its part, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has stepped up its anti-piracy enforcement efforts on the Internet. The BSA is pursuing educational outreach and working to ensure that the laws protecting intellectual property are adequate to the task. The United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8 covers copyright infringement. U.S. law, based on this provision, protects a person's right to control the reproduction and distribution of his or her creative works. Copyright protection includes many types of creative works, including computer software. The owner of the copyright is entitled to say how and under what circumstances the software is reproduced, distributed and installed. When you buy software, you purchase the right to use it, under certain restrictions imposed by the copyright owner. If a user copies, distributes, or installs the software in ways that the license does not allow, they are violating federal copyright law. If caught with pirated software, a user or company may be liable under both civil and criminal law. The copyright owner can bring a civil action against them. In that action, the owner can seek to stop them from using the pirated software and can request money damages. Statutory damages can be as much as $100,000 for each work copied. Federal judges have shown their intolerance of copyright violators by handing down increasingly large damage awards against violators. The government can criminally prosecute you for copyright infringement. If convicted, the courts can assess fines up to $250,000 or a jail term of up to five years, or both. In 1997, President Clinton signed the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act, making it easier to prosecute software pirates on the Internet. Now prosecution is possible even if they did not make money from their piracy acts. Along with criminal consequences, pirated software often comes with other risks such as: Viruses, corrupt disks, or otherwise defective software. There are many reasons for the end users downloading of pirated software, some good, some bad: “It's okay if you're using it for educational purposes”…”I needed it, but the price was unreasonably high. "If I had to actually pay for it, there is no way I could ever afford it.” …“I didn't know it was illegal"…”It is only illegal if you get caught"…”Oh, come on, everyone is doing it!” Often users are not knowledgeable of the legal implications associated with the downloading of this type of software, and often these warez sites have misleading disclaimers. Some companies offer free demo or trial versions of their product, leading to a common Net myth that it is okay to download programs to try them out if they are deleted within 24 hours. Some users feel that since software is so expensive, and they've wasted a lot of money on expensive but worthless programs, that they will try them out and if they like them then they will purchase them. Others just either cannot afford them or just choose not to pay for them. Some believe that everything on the Internet is in the public domain. Not realizing that someone other than the author or someone without the author’s permission puts pirated software on the Internet. The excuses for pirates are not usually as innocent. Most pirates get some kind of reward from what they do, sometimes monetary but most often just a selfish personal “thrill.” The whole point of the Warez sub-culture is to get the pirated program released and distributed before any other group. There are some warez members that pride themselves on 0-day releases, that is copies of commercial software copied and cracked on the same day as its retail release. Cyber pirates are often teenagers and people that have alienated themselves from society and use this as a means to achieve social recognition. In addition, there are groups resisting the efforts to strengthen anti-piracy laws, encouraging the ability to copy software. They believe that software should be free, that enforcing anti-piracy laws is not possible, or payment for software is on a voluntary basis (shareware). This very different approach to software piracy, shareware, acknowledges the futility of trying to stop people from copying software and instead relies on people's honesty. Shareware publishers encourage users to give copies of programs to friends and colleagues but asks everyone who uses a program regularly to pay a registration fee to the program's author directly. In addition, many sites offer Freeware, software available to download free of charge. Products such as Freeware and Shareware offer a deterrent to but do not really stop software piracy. According to these groups, the greater social benefit results from the free distribution of software. In order to put an end to software piracy there are many companies, government, and law enforcement agencies working hand in hand. Many search engines are playing their part as well, by excluding terms such as “warez” from their search results. Internet server involvement is also instrumental in the stopping of these types of crimes, by intercepting downloads from these illegal sites servers can obtain information to shut down these sites as well as deter end users from attempting further downloads. Most software producers include anti-piracy components in their software, unfortunately the pirates have the ability to break through them as well so constant upgrades in anti-piracy technology is necessary. Most software now requires some sort of registration, which may discourage pirates. There are also 1-800 numbers as well as online sites to report software piracy to help inform as well as strengthen the cases against individuals as well as organizations. To put an end to software piracy entirely would be a huge task, but to deter it greatly stricter U.S. Copyright laws need implementation. The lawmakers have addressed piracy by approving H.R. 2281, copyright legislation that will implement the WIPO Copyright Treaties. The WIPO Treaties will standardize international copyright laws and give software publishers the tools necessary to combat piracy; this is critical because not all international copyright laws specifically protect creative materials on the Internet. Included within these stricter laws we need greater penalties for those convicted of software piracy. We need more awareness as to the implications of software piracy, such as the future of software prices as well as the personal legal issues. Also, there is a need of better policing of activities on web pages that promote such activity. As long as pirated software is available, and as long as people are willing to be tempted into unethical practices, software piracy will continue. By putting a stop to these software pirates, the unethical practices of end users end as well. Bibliography: ¨ Business Software Alliance www.bsa.org ¨ Software & Information Industry www.siia.net ¨ BSA Anti-Piracy Site www.nopiracy.com ¨ University of Tasmania WWW Service www.utas.edu.au ¨ Laudon, Kenneth C, and Jane P. Management Information Systems: organization and technology in the networked enterprise 6th ed. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

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