...An Overview on SOFTWARE PIRACY under Intellectual Property Right Regime e1834 Abinash Chandra Nayak (SOFTWARE PIRACY IS "UNAUTHORIZED COPYING OR DISTRIBUTION OF COPYRIGHTED SOFTWARE .") SOFTWARE PIRACY IS A VIOLATION OF COPYRIGHT LAW AND A FORM OF THEFT . What Is Software Piracy? The definition of software piracy is the "unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software." While this definition may sound simple, its impact and affect are anything but. In 2008, worldwide software piracy rates rose to 41 percent, with losses estimated at $50.2 billion, according to a study by the Business Software Alliance. Identification Whether you purchase software from a retail store or download installation files from an Internet site, a user license, not the CD or possession of installation files, is what gives you the right to install and use the software. The license you purchase defines specific terms and conditions regarding legal use of the software, such as how many computers you may install the software on, or whether you can transfer the software to another computer. Any actions you take outside the limits of the license constitute software piracy. 1 Methods Software piracy can take many forms, but one of the most common includes counterfeiting, or a licensed user making duplicate copies of the software to sell or give away, with or without providing codes to unlicensed users as a work-around to anti-piracy features. Other piracy methods include ...
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...Internet Piracy has become a hot topic as of late with all the recent cyber security bills being purposed in congress. Many companies that own intellectual property want these bills to pass, this will allow them to better defend their intellectual property against would be pirates. The three benefits to software piracy are the removal or price conscious consumers from the market, showing interest in the product, and give the owner company’s word of mouth advertising. Software piracy is a complicated issue, although the person pirating the piece of software is technically stealing, they are only stealing time and ideas. There is no physical item missing from the creator of the software. Software piracy is the unauthorized copying of computer software. Many countries around the world have copyright laws which apply to software piracy but the extent of enforcement differs. These copyrights usually surpass the practical life of the product (US Government). Today the oldest programs for computers have copyrights will not expire till the year 2030. These programs are forty years old, that’s a sixty year old copyright for a program that is about as useful as an ejector seat on a helicopter. The changes in operating systems, network environments, and user expectations generally make software programs out of date faster than the copyright runs out (Wikipedia). A law that has been proposed is the U.S. Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act (UCITA); this law is very controversial...
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...Introduction Piracy is a form of theft. Specifically, it refers to the unauthorized copying or use of intellectual property. Intellectual property is knowledge or expression that is owned by someone. There are three major types of intellectual property: 1) creative works, including music, written material, movies, and software, which are protected by copyright law; 2) inventions, which are protected by patent law; and 3) brand-name products, which are protected by trademarks. Many of the issues surrounding piracy have to do with the difference between intellectual property and physical property. A CD, for example, is a piece of physical property, but the songs on the CD are intellectual property. A customer in a record store can purchase a CD, but someone else still owns—or more precisely, has the copyright to—the songs on the CD. Piracy is primarily a problem for the entertainment and software industries, and therefore piracy most often involves violations of copyright law. Copyright is a legal right that protects creative works from being reproduced, performed, or disseminated without permission of the copyright owner. Essentially, a copyright gives its owner the exclusive right to make copies of the material in question. The American Heritage Dictionary defines piracy as "the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted or patented material." It is a problem that affects companies all over the world. Piracy of software, movies, and music is commonplace in China. China...
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...Software Piracy in Pakistan Piracy is considered to be illegally spreading of anyone’s work. Being an illegal act measures should be taken to ban it and violators should be punished. The history of piracy goes back to the ancient times when people started trading and they were robbed in their ways to the destination. In the 20th century the word piracy was expanded to redistributing, selling or copying of some ones work without one’s consent. With the advancement of technology and individual work, the piracy on individual or company level is also becoming a burning issue. For instance radio piracy consists of unofficial and part-time broadcasting of different channels. Similar is the case of electronic media where stealing and distribution of CDs, DVDs, softwares, soft copies of documents and other stuff has become common. Among these piracies of electronic media, illegal use of softwares is the utmost issue of today’s world of technology. Software piracy is the illegal copying, distribution, unauthorized resale, software counterfeiting and cracking for personal use. It is obviously an illegal act as it is considered as confiscating one’s intellectual property. In software piracy, software is purchased by one person for one single computer or organization & it is then duplicated as backup or given to other people for their personal use. The different types of software piracy include end user piracy, reseller piracy, trade name infringement and internet piracy. These all types...
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...SOFTWARE PIRACY IFSM 304 Abstract In the various media industries there are extreme worries concerning unauthorized downloading and copying of their products known as piracy. Piracy of items has been part of commerce for centuries; counterfeiting of currency for example. With the information age the ease at which media can be pirated has caused an explosion of this phenomenon. This practice is an illegal act that is done by individuals for personal use and also for profit. The first do not seem to see the issues caused by this practice such as; the spreading of viruses and lower quality products. We will use Reynolds' Seven-Step Ethical Decision Making Approach for the breakdown of the ethical reality of software piracy. Introduction Software piracy is defined as illegally copying software for distribution within the organization, or to friends, clubs and other groups, or for duplication and resale (PC Mag, n.d.). Software piracy is a worldwide issue. With the increase in the access to and the speed of the Internet the availability of pirated media continues to increase in availability. The most common of types of piracy follow: Softlifting: Borrowing and installing a copy of a software application from a colleague. Client-server overuse: Installing more copies of the software than you have licenses for. Hard-disk loading: Installing and selling unauthorized copies of software on refurbished or new computers. Counterfeiting: Duplicating and selling copyrighted...
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...EXECUTIVE SUMMARY China's government has pledged to crack down copyright piracy by implementation of anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting laws and regulations; it faces increasing pressure to show progress. The periodic crackdowns against counterfeiting have been launched but they often seem motivated more by politically appeasing the United States and other countries than a sincere effort to combat the problem. The United States and other countries want China to impose harsher penalties on crimes linked with counterfeit goods. Chinese law protects trademarks and prohibits companies from copying the “look and feel” of other companies' stores. The Chinese government enforced laws against copyrights piracy in 2006; there were criminal penalties on producing or selling counterfeit goods if the total value of the confiscated products was less than a certain amount. The penalty for importing pirated discs is up to four years in prison and a fine of $1,290 for each imported disc. The Chinese government warns violators in large markets in Shanghai and Beijing of these penalties. However, some doubt that much will change until China graduates from manufacturing goods to designing them. New opinions on handling criminal copyright infringement cases contain helpful provisions which could foster an effective criminal remedy against online piracy activities. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) commends the efforts of the U.S. Government to secure these important...
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...Assignment Software piracy is the illegal copying, distribution, or use of software. It is such a profitable "business" that it has caught the attention of organized crime groups in a number of countries. When you purchase a commercial software package, an end user license agreement ( EULA) is included to protect that software program from copyright infringement. Typically, the license states that you can install the original copy of software you bought on one computer and that you can make a backup copy in case the original is lost or damaged. You agree to the licensing agreement when you open the software package (this is called a shrink wrap license), when you open the envelope that contains the software disks, or when you install the software. 2 organizations that that work to prevent software piracy is SIIA and FAST. The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is a trade organization for the software and digital content industry. SIIA offers global services in business development, government relations, corporate education, and intellectual property protection to companies. It also advocates a legal and regulatory environment that benefits the entire industry. The Federation Against Software Theft was set up in 1984 by the British Computer Society's Copyright Committee, and was the first software copyright organization in the U.K. Its first action was to raise the awareness of software piracy and to lobby the U.K. Parliament for changes in the Copyright Act of...
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...Some companies devise their formulas that have economic value as much as they would come up with new methods and processes. These inventions must not be used by any one wilily-nilly; this calls for laws to protect such innovations and intellectual properties. This has led to copyright laws and property or intellectual rights. A copyright law is a set of rules and regulations that protects a person or organization’s unique creation of invention or innovation against copying and abuse or other forms of illegal usage. The issue is that if a person has used his resources and expertise and knowledge to create a new item, no one must benefit from that item without the authorization of the inventor. In order to avoid illegal usage of another person’s property there is need for legislation to enforce compliance. The use of the property must be done with the authorization of the inventor or the creator. Some people want to be paid for the effort they would have put and the resources they would have used to come up with such an asset. Copyright laws are important because they regularize the usage of a person’s intellectual property. This is essential in business today. In the same category as the copyright laws is the intellectual property right. If there has not been property right and copyright organizations and people would use other people’s property without paying for it. That may also lead to tarnishing of other people or organizational images. Let us take an example of a trade mark...
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...geographically diverse companies, it also enables parties with less than ethical purposes to carry activities detrimental to those businesses or even to individual from remote location. One of those activities is piracy, which has been a plague for most production organizations and individuals as it prevents them from reaping the full benefit of their work. For the giant corporations, the impact might be minimal but for small and medium businesses with less financial power, this could be quite detrimental as it can cut away a great portion of their expected income. In this paper, I will discuss how the global system can be an enabler for illegal activities whether it is cyber-terrorism or piracy of intellectual properties. The focus will be placed on piracy and how it can affects the small and medium enterprises and the legal measures that are being implemented on an international level as well as on the U.S national level to deter it. Works Cited: • Andrés, A. R., & Asongu, S. A. (2013). Fighting Software Piracy: Which GovernanceTools Matter in Africa?. Discusses how the role of government in reinforcing laws protecting intellectual property right and how a key factor such as corruption can affect the government attempts at controlling piracy especially in developing countries. • McManis, C. R. & Pelletier, J. S. (2012). Two Tales of a Treaty Revisited: The Proposed Anti-Counterfeiting...
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...ONLINE PIRACY: JAYWALKING OR THEFT? Introduction Online piracy is one of the most difficult problems to solution. Online piracy is the illegal downloading or copying of materials or intellectual property that are copyrighted. Intellectual property is an expression or knowledge owned by another individual. There are several forms of piracy that invade the online world – music, movies, software, and videogames. The issues surrounding online piracy revolve on the difference between physical property and intellectual property. The videogame content is an intellectual property while the CD of the videogame is a physical property. Since piracy is a problem for most software companies and the entertainment industry, this has encompassed copyright violations. Copyright pertains to the legal right that serves as protection for works that have been created. A copyright provides the purchaser an exclusive right to produce copies of the intellectual property. The problem of online piracy gained attention during the period when Napster allowed internet users to exchange digital music files through the use of peer-to-peer technology. In 2000, Napster had over twenty million users. What made the site very controversial was the unlimited access that the users have to copyrighted music. The downloading of files was not realized as a means of practicing piracy. Stealing was never considered their ultimate purpose. Major issues Brian Lee ordered a videogame which apparently did...
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...Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Name: Institution: Course: Tutor: Date: What is Stop Online Piracy Act? Stop Online Piracy Act is a United State bill that is aimed at increasing the ability of United State law to fight online trafficking of counterfeits goods and copyrighted property. Stop Online Privacy Act was introduced by Lamar smith who is a representative in the United States. Therefore, Stop Online Piracy Act targets pirate bay, which are mostly used by individuals for illegal downloads. These pirate bays are mostly the overseas sites such as torrent hub that are frequently accessed by most individuals. Stop Online Piracy Act has various provisions (Crothers, 2012). Firstly, SOPA requires the courts to put up requests that are aimed at ensuring that both the online payment facilities and advertising networks refrain from using the infringing websites to conduct their business activities. Secondly, Stop Online Piracy Act requires the courts to have orders that ensure that internet service providers do not have access to the infringing websites. The final provision of Stop Online Piracy Act states that all search engines such as Google should not link to the infringing websites. Therefore, SOPA provisions are aimed at including piracy of copyrighted content in the criminal laws that will attract a maximum of five years imprisonment. Stop Online Piracy Act has been opposed and embraced by the Americans. Those...
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...sharing, internet has become a common place to upload and download audio-visual materials like recorded films. Copyright is a common method used to protect ones production rights on a particular piece of material over the internet. In fact, the graph below shows that copyright infringement is the most common type of infringement; Figure 1: source; Canadian SME However, in peer-to-peer file sharing, most people infringe these rights and pass other people’s work as their own. In fact, IFPI states in their report that “the ease of access to music by means of illegal file sharing has damaged its perceived value to customers”. This has been a great challenge to music and film industry globally (Leyshon, A., 2003). For instance in the recent emergence of file swapping services that are based on the internet. These services include Napster that has allowed huge exploitation of recorded work without any little authorization of the users. Actually, this has been attributed to the slow rate of sales in CDs and DVDs due to enabled file sharing (P2P). (Mortimer, J. 2012). Peer-to-Peer sharing and copyright law Copyright in this context is the legal protective law for all kinds of creative work on any form(s) of media. This law therefore limits unfair usage of these intellectual properties in both real world and cyberspace. Infringement of these laws is called piracy. Piracy is an illegal...
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...000 square-meter, seven-level piracy temple, packed with nearly 2,000 small stalls, staffed by thousands of hard-charging, take no prisoner vendors, offering cheap knockoffs of the leading branded products in the world. Navigating a surreal bazaar gone wild, I stroll by stalls boldly displaying bogus Prada purses, Hugo Boss shirts, ad Hermes scarves; depending on how well you negotiate, each can be had for an absurd fraction of the price of the genuine version. Moving on, stall after stall offers infamous “copywatches,” Nike gear, Sony Jump Drives, Wii Remotes, Gillette razors, Oakley sunglasses, Zeiss binoculars, Nikon lenses, North Face jackets – one after another, in a seemingly endless procession of premier brand names. Despite spot-on comestic resemblance, virtually all is counterfeit. Moving around, one comes to digital zones, finding copies of software, music, games, and movies. Rack upon rack displays products from some of the best and the brightest minds of the world, now selling for ludicrously low prices-Microsoft Windows 7 for about a buck, Microsoft Office for $0.75, Wii Guitar Hero for a buck, Photoshop for two bucks, AutoCad for five dollars. Each stall is packed with an ever-changing collage of customers-Germans, Indians, Canadians, Brazilians, British, and Americans, and so on-each getting past initial shock, and many buying multiple titles. -DPS’s stroll through the Silk Market, Beijing, March 2011 Almost from its inception, software technology has been has been...
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...Klodd Moore Mr. Vauhn EN 1320 8/7/13 Piracy vs. Copyright Violation The ongoing dispute over illegal Internet-based file sharing between the entertainment and software industries and the vast, online pirating community has been one of the most debated topics. Gripping public attention for the past decades. Napster, a website created by a college dropout became an empire. Used by hundreds of millions of people, that robs billions in revenue each year. Although these rogue websites claimed to only be hosts for illegal file sharing, the United States government took action to eliminate Internet piracy and protect copyright by implementing digital encryption technologies and strict laws that prohibit tampering with these encryptions. The trafficking of copyrighted goods must be put to an end because it promotes illegal transactions of an owner’s intellectual property, causing sales in the entertainment and software industries to plummet and thereby restricts the growth of the economy. Internet piracy is the unlawful reproduction and/or distribution of any copyrighted digital file without the permission from the owner. It is driven by the consumers demand for a desirable product that would otherwise be unobtainable, either because of financial limitations or cultural factors, such as the Chinese culture’s emphasis that the free sharing of knowledge creates and preserves both civilization and traditional values across generations (Lu 310). Consequently, such a mindset that has...
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...Software piracy, define as the unauthorized use, distribution, duplication or sale of commercially available software, has become a global issue. In fact, almost one-third of all installed software is pirated (Jansma, 2004). Software pirates are responsible for over $10 billion in lost revenue (Hess, 2003). Each industry must protect its own intellectual property. The three most important aspects in helping to resolve piracy is knowing the processes and techniques in capturing piracy, identifying the motivating factors, and prevention. How do organizations capture pirates? There are three processes that can help software companies catch violators: monitoring, preserving evidence, and taking action. The first step is for companies to determine the extent of its piracy problem and monitor the online channels (Hess, 2003, p.4). Once the extent of the problem is identified, online monitoring should be implemented to discover the details. The two types of monitoring are in-house and outsourcing. The advantage of using the in-house monitoring program is that it saves money and the staff gains firsthand knowledge of the strategies that are used. Outsourcing the monitoring can be expensive, but the main advantage is that the service is extensive and uses systematic monitoring (Hess, 2003, p.5). Most pirated software is sold on auction websites, such as eBay, Yahoo! Auctions, and Amazon.com Auctions (Hess, 2003, p.5). Approximately, 60-90% of the software products offered in online auctions...
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