Software Piracy

There are strict laws that prohibit software piracy and impose several penalties and/or imprisonment. Software companies lose large amounts of revenue to pirates. Software piracy was estimated to exceed $1 billion in 2001 in the US alone. It is expected to exceed $112 billion by 2005. Some web sites openly declare that they buy and sell pirated software. People should not get involved in transactions with such sites, as they might get into legal problems later. Governments in many countries have formulated laws to deal with software piracy. Software companies that own the original software can go to court and take action against the individuals and organizations that are distributing pirated software. Some trade associations in the software industry are actively monitoring and tracking software piracy in cyberspace and helping software companies take action against such illegal activities. Software Publisher's Association (SPA) is one of the associations that help companies fight piracy.

In the US, according to the federal law, if an individual or an organization reproduces or distributes ten or more illegal copies of copyrighted software valued at $2500 or more within a period of six months, it is considered as a case of software piracy. It could attract a penalty up to $250,000 and ten years of imprisonment in case of firsttime violation, and stiffer punishment for subsequent violations. According to the estimates of Business Software Alliance Global Policy Study, India lost almost $240 million to pirated software in 2000. Similarly, NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies) estimated in 2001 that 61% of software sold in India is pirated. Adobe Systems, the publishing software company, is one of the biggest victims. The piracy level for Adobe products is close to 90 per cent.

In most countries, it is illegal to make copies of copyrighted software and transfer them to others or download copyrighted software from others (instead of buying original software from authorized dealer). If a person gets to see the offer of pirated software on the bulletin boards of any site, he should immediately inform the system operator (sysop). Sysops need to monitor all the software uploads onto their systems.

If any pirated software is uploaded, they should immediately remove the file and warn the user responsible for it. If sysops choose to ignore the presence of pirated software on their networks, it will lead to free trafficking of illegal copies and legal problems in the future. Sysops facilitate several megabytes of uploads everyday which may make it difficult for them to screen each file thoroughly. They may request users to inform them in case they find any pirated software files on the bulletin boards or deploy advanced software to detect pirated software copies.

Apart from pirated software, there are some programs called 'cracks', which help in breaking the copy protection schemes of original software files. It is legal to possess cracks or distribute them to others through cyberspace. However, using cracks to modify the content of the original software is illegal. People can use programs to bypass copy protection methods of original software and make duplicate copies. But the copies should be used by buyers of original software only for personal purposes such as maintaining back up copies on the server. It is illegal to transfer the copies to others.

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