Software Piracy

Abstract

Software piracy is the copying of software by those who are not legally authorized to do so, whether for sale or for their own use. The economic impact of piracy is difficult to quantify exactly, but there is no question that it denies the software industry billions of dollars in sales annually. The rise of the Internet as a medium for exchange of digital goods and services has made software piracy much easier to commit and harder to combat. Technical copy protection measures are of limited effectiveness in preventing piracy. Enforcement efforts directed against corporate softloading have had considerable success, but efforts directed at individual softlifters face many practical obstacles and have had much less impact. Globally, piracy rates can be expected to decline where countries improve their enforcement of intellectual property laws in order to participate in the global economy.

Software Piracy: A Primer

“…The software company owns the software. Software piracy is an act of infringement of copyright and a contravention of its license [1]. It may take the form of online piracy (such as peer-to-peer file-sharing), duplicating and selling illegal copies of the software, and client-server overuse.…”