in a tangible form (written somewhere -i.e. printout) is considered copyrighted without any additional action on thepart of the author. Therefore, it is not necessary that a copy of the softwareprogram be deposited with the National Copyright Office for the program to beprotected as copyrighted. With that in mind a copyright is a property rightonly. In order to prevent anyone from selling your software programs, you mustask a (federal) court to stop that person by an injunction and to give youdamages for the injury they have done to you by selling the program.The Software Rental Amendments Act was approved in 1990. This Act prohibitsthe commercial rental, leasing or lending of software without the expresswritten permission of the copyright holder. Another amendment to theCopyright Act was passed in 1992. This amendment made software piracy afederal offense, and instituted criminal penalties for copyright infringementof software. The penalties can include imprisonment of up to five years, finesup to $250,000 or both for unauthorized reproduction or distribution of 10 ormore copies of software with a total retail value exceeding $2,500 or more.According to federal law duplicating software for profit, making multiplecopies for use by different users within an organization, and giving anunauthorized copy to someone else is prohibited. Under this law if anyone iscaught with the pirated software, an individual or the individual's company canbe tried under both civil and criminal law. A Civil action may beestablished for injunction, actual damages (which includes the infringer'sprofits) or statutory damages up to $100,000 per infringement. The criminalpenalties for copyright infringement can result in fines up to $250,000 and ajail term up to five years for the first offense and ten years for a secondoffense. When software is counterfeit or copied, the software developer losestheir revenue and the whole software industry feels ...
