Software Piracy [Archives:2000/17/Science & Technology]

Bassam Al-Sabri
Yemen Times

Software piracy is defined as the unauthorized copying, reproduction, use, or manufacture of software products. Nowadays, it is estimated that there is, as a minimum, one unauthorized copy of computer software for every authorized copy in use. As a matter of fact, in some countries such as Indonesia, Hong Kong and other Far East countries up to 100 (or even more) unauthorized copies are made for every authorized copy in use. Software piracy damages one and all members of the software community including end users themselves. Some of the harms of piracy are that software prices for duly licensed users continue to escalate while the levels of support decrease. In addition, the spread of software piracy holds up financial support and advancement of new products and therefore result in a drastic drop in software quality.
Regardless of their size, place or financial status, all software publishers suffer enormously from piracy practices. They spend years developing software for the public at high costs while other dishonest parties make full use of their work at no cost. Therefore, when software publishers do not find legitimate markets in which they could sell their products, they lose the incentive to develop further new advanced programs. The reason for this, as those software publishers perfectly know, is that they will not be able to retrieve development researches’ costs. This could cause a serious holdback in the advancement of local software communities. We must all know that a large portion of the money we use to purchase original software is channeled into the research, development and production of new advanced software products. On the other hand, when purchasing pirated software, what we pay purely warms the pockets of software pirates and no body but them makes full use of it. This could, in the long term, gravely damage local and national economies. There will be less legal software sales and this in turn would result in a loss in tax revenue and decreased employment.
In general, there are five basic forms of software piracy. All with no exceptions cause direct and indirect harm for both software publishers and end users. The five basic types of piracy are:
Softlifting: This occurs when employees within an organization use extra copies of a certain program. “Disk swapping” amongst friends outside the business environment also falls into this category.
Online: This is the download of copyrighted software to users connected through a modem to an electronic bulletin board or the Internet without obtaining an authorization from the copyright owner.
License Misuse: It is the distribution of copyrighted software out of the constrained legitimate channels it was planned for or the use of the product in a manner that does not fall in with the license agreement.
Hard-Disk Loading: It is the load of unauthorized copies of software onto computers’ hard disks and then offering them for sale. The unauthorized copies are used as an incentive for the ends user to purchase their computers.
Counterfeiting: This is the illegal duplication and sale of copyrighted software, often in a form designed to make the product appear legitimate. One very popular trend of counterfeiting is compilation CDs, where several unauthorized software programs’ copies are sold on one CD.
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