Software Piracy-More than just some Hackers August 2, 2010
Posted by admin in : General , trackbackThe Evils of Software Piracy – A growing Issue
Lets be honest, many of us at some time or another have burned a CD or watched a Hollywood movie on our laptop at home. While we may or may not chose to recognize that that might be some form of software piracy, we know that it is not as serious as the issue can get.
According to Cnet news, software piracy was responsible for an industry wide loss of 34 billion USD (that’s nine zeros!) worldwide in 2005. But wait, there’s more. Not to be outdone, Deutsche Welle, ran an article claiming losses due to pirated software reached 50 billion in 2009. You don’t have to hold a Master’s in Business Administration to know that this is a serious loss which cant be ignored. In order to combat this problem some companies have resorted to using more advanced verification methods with varying degrees of success. Companies that use cloud computing are well placed to deal with this threat as the software can be constantly verified. Companies like Panda’s antivirus scanning software is an example of this, and it would be interesting to see if products like this are plagued by piracy in the same manner.
Consider the fact that most software costs far more than the computer hardware it is designed to run on, it comes as no surprise that black-market software piracy is big business. When looking at the numbers, we have clearly gone beyond the realm of mixed tapes.
Software piracy can take many forms.
The most popular is also the most innocuous, often known as ‘illegal sharing’, is the uploading and downloading of software. While this is not done for money or profit, it still accounts for a great percentage of software piracy and, unfortunately, is still illegal. This type of software piracy is not uncommon and can be called by many names such as ‘internet piracy’ or ‘illegal downloading’.
However, software piracy is not always the work of teen-aged hackers staying up late nights drinking Red-bull and downloading movies between sessions of World of Warcraft, there are many ways in which a computer company or private enterprise can pirate software on an industrial scale. Making illegal copies of legal software and selling it is known as ‘software counterfeiting’. While the original is legal, the copies are not. A trip through many large cities across the world will provide examples of street vendors hocking pirated DVDs and software.
OEM piracy: Special type of software piracy
Second, we have OEM violations. OEM is an acronym for Original Equipment Manufacture and it is where the real problems for software designers start to get out of control. OEM piracy revolves around those “for distribution with new PC hardware only” discs and the options for abuse are limitless. A company can also legally purchase a software program but distribute it in ways which are considered piracy: placing the software on a shared server, illegally installing it on multiple computers or under reporting the number of computers equipped with the program. In each case, the software may have been purchased legally, but the way in which it is being used makes it piracy.
Small time piracy
Smaller computer providers also play their role in the missing 50 billion. Known as hard disk loading, a private company can sell hardware that has the pirates software installed allowing them to raise the price of the PC without paying for the software license themselves. Additionally, a store can sell software which is meant to be bundled with other software suites individually, called ‘unbundling’. Also illegal.
While stories of individual users and movie sharing sites seem to catch the headlines, software piracy goes much further. Violating intellectual property rights and agreements in any way constitute software piracy. Software developers balance the benefits of prosecution against the losses at the hands of pirates on a case -by-case basis. Developers take it seriously, so should you. Nearly every nation has strict rules regarding piracy, but application and enforcement are irregular at best.
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?