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in support of software piracy, 2006.]] The copyright infringement
Copyright infringement

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works....
 of software (often referred to as software piracy) refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer software. Copyright infringement of this kind is extremely common in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and most other western countries. Most countries have copyright laws which apply to software, but they are better enforced in some countries than others. Since a dispute over WTO membership between Iran
Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
 and USA, which led to the legalization in Iran of the distribution of software without the permission of any copyright holder (see Iran and copyright issues
Iran and copyright issues

According to Circular 38a of the U.S. Copyright Office, Iran has no official copyright relations whatsoever with the United States.Therefore works originating in one of these countries are thus not copyrighted in the United States, regardless of the local copyright laws of these countries ....
), there have been fears that world governments might try to use copyright laws and enforcement politically.

The rate of copyright infringement of software in the Asia-Pacific region has been estimated at 53% for 2004 China is the world's largest producer of pirated products, including software.






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in support of software piracy, 2006.]] The copyright infringement
Copyright infringement

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works....
 of software (often referred to as software piracy) refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer software. Copyright infringement of this kind is extremely common in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and most other western countries. Most countries have copyright laws which apply to software, but they are better enforced in some countries than others. Since a dispute over WTO membership between Iran
Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
 and USA, which led to the legalization in Iran of the distribution of software without the permission of any copyright holder (see Iran and copyright issues
Iran and copyright issues

According to Circular 38a of the U.S. Copyright Office, Iran has no official copyright relations whatsoever with the United States.Therefore works originating in one of these countries are thus not copyrighted in the United States, regardless of the local copyright laws of these countries ....
), there have been fears that world governments might try to use copyright laws and enforcement politically.

The rate of copyright infringement of software in the Asia-Pacific region has been estimated at 53% for 2004 China is the world's largest producer of pirated products, including software. The Business Software Alliance estimates that in 2006 82% of the PC software used in China was pirated. After joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) China has adjusted its Intellectual Property (IP) laws to comply with the WTO Agreement on Trade - Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Officially, the laws are in place now, but in practice they are mostly ignored.

Activities that may constitute infringement

Copyright infringement of software may refer to the following kinds of practices when done without the permission of the copyright holder:
  • Creating a copy and/or selling it. This is the act that some people refer to as "software piracy". This is copyright infringement in most countries and is unlikely to be fair use
    Fair use

    Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review....
     or fair dealing
    Fair dealing

    Fair dealing is a doctrine of limitations and exceptions to copyright which is found in many of the common law jurisdictions of the Commonwealth of Nations....
     if the work remains commercially available. In some countries the laws may allow the selling of a version modified for use by blind people, students (for educational product) or similar. Differences in legislation may also make the copyright void in some jurisdictions, but not the others.


  • Creating a copy and giving it to someone else. This constitutes copyright infringement in most jurisdictions. It is not infringing under specific circumstances such as fair use
    Fair use

    Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review....
     and fair dealing
    Fair dealing

    Fair dealing is a doctrine of limitations and exceptions to copyright which is found in many of the common law jurisdictions of the Commonwealth of Nations....
    .


  • Creating a copy to serve as a backup
    Backup

    In information technology, backup refers to making copies of data so that these additional copies may be used to restore the original after a data loss event....
    . This is seen as a fundamental right of the software-buyer in some countries, e.g., Germany
    Germany

    Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
    , Spain
    Spain

    Spain or the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in Southern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though Espa?a , Estado espa?ol and Naci?n espa?ola are used interchangeably....
    , Brazil
    Brazil

    Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the List of countries by population country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world....
     and Philippines
    Philippines

    The Philippines, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines, is a country in Southeast Asia with Manila as its capital city. It comprises 7,107 islands in the western Pacific Ocean....
    . It can be infringement, depending on the laws and the case law
    Case law

    Case law is the general term for the principles and rules of law set forth in judge legal opinion from courts of law. Case law incorporates courts' decisions from individual legal case and encompasses courts' interpretations of statutes, constitution provisions, administrative law regulations and, in some cases, law originating solely f...
     interpretations of those laws, currently undergoing changes in many countries. In the US, legal action was taken against companies which made backup copies while repairing computers (see MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc.
    MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc.

    MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., Case citation , is a case in United States law that addresses the question of whether or not loading a program into Random Access Memory makes a copy of the software and can be restricted by copyright....
     (1993)) and as a result, US law was changed
    Digital Millennium Copyright Act

    The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization ....
     so that making temporary backup copies of software while repairing computers is not copyright infringement.


  • Renting the original software. Software licenses often restrict the usual right of a purchaser of a copyrighted work to let others borrow the work. In some jurisdictions the validity of such restrictions are disputed, but some require permission from the copyright holder to allow renting the software.


  • Buying the original software. Licenses say that the buyer does not buy the software but instead pays for the right to use the software. In the US, the first-sale doctrine
    First-sale doctrine

    The first-sale doctrine is a limitation on copyright that was recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908 and subsequently codified in the Copyright Act of 1976, ....
    , Softman v. Adobe and Novell, Inc. v. CPU Distrib., Inc. ruled that software sales are purchases, not licenses, and resale, including unbundling, is lawful regardless of a contractual prohibition. The reasoning in Softman v. Adobe suggests that resale of student licensed versions, provided they are accurately described as such, is also not infringing.


Existing and proposed laws

Too many of these attempts at circumventing these end user license agreements (EULA) software vendors counter that if a user somehow obtains software without agreeing to or becoming bound by the end user license agreement, then they do not have any license to use the software at all.

In most third world countries, the term of a copyright never exceeds any useful life a program may have. The oldest legacy computer systems used today
2007

2007 was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century.2007 was designated as:* International Heliophysical Year....
  are still less than 40 years old. The copyright on them will not expire in the United States and Europe until about 2030. Changes in computer hardware, operating systems, network environments and user expectations usually make programs obsolete much faster than in 70 years (the current copyright length).

Under the proposed US Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), a controversial model law
List of Uniform Acts (United States)

This is a list of Uniform Acts....
 that has been adopted in Virginia
Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia is an United States U.S. state on the East Coast of the United States of the Southern United States. The state is known as the "Old Dominion" and sometimes as "Mother of Presidents", because it is the birthplace of Lists of United States Presidents by place of birth#By state....
 and Maryland
Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic States of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia and the Washington, D.C. to the south and west, Pennsylvania to the north, and Delaware to the east....
, software manufacturers are granted broad rights to shut down unauthorized software copiers without court intervention similar to some of the provisions found in Title II of the US
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 DMCA, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act
Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act

The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act , a portion of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act known as DMCA 512 or the DMCA takedown provisions, is a 1998 United States federal law that provides a safe harbor to online service providers that promptly take down content if someone alleges it infringes their copyrig...
, which allows copyright holders to demand that an online service provider
Online service provider

An online service provider is inclusive to internet service providers and web sites, such as Wikipedia's or Usenet . In its original more limited definition it referred only to a commercial computer communication service in which paid members could dial via a computer modem the service's private computer network and access various services a...
 (OSP) expeditiously block access to infringing materials. If the OSP complies, it is granted a safe harbor
Safe harbor

The term safe harbor has several special usages, in an analogy with its literal meaning, that of a harbor or haven which provides safety from weather or attack....
, providing it immunity from infringement claims. If it doesn't comply, it doesn't become liable, but may instead rely on the protection of the Communications Decency Act
Communications Decency Act

The Communications Decency Act of 1996 was the first notable attempt by the United States Congress to regulate pornography material on the Internet....
.

Title I of the US
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 DMCA, the WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act
WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act

The WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaty Implementation Act, is a part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act , a 1998 United States law....
 has provisions that prevent persons from "circumvent[ing] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work". Thus if a software manufacturer has some kind of software, dongle or password access device installed in the software any attempt to bypass such a copy protection
Copy protection

Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention, or copy restriction, is a technology for preventing the reproduction of copyrighted software, movies, music, and other media....
 scheme may be actionable
Cause of action

In the law, a cause of action is a set of facts sufficient to justify a right to sue. The phrase may refer to the legal theory upon which a plaintiff brings suit ....
 — though the US Copyright Office is currently reviewing anticircumvention rulemaking under DMCA — anticircumvention exemptions that have been in place under the DMCA include those in software designed to filter websites that are generally seen to be inefficient (child safety and public library website filtering software) and the circumvention of copy protection mechanisms that have malfunctioned, have caused the software to become inoperable or which are no longer supported by their manufacturers.

Most commercially exploited proprietary software is developed in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, hence for those located in economically disadvantaged economies it can be prohibitively expensive to pay for all the end user licenses for those products rather than to purchase just one license and then copy the software without paying any additional licensing fees. Some critics in the developing countries of the world see this as an indirect technology transfer tax on their country preventing technological advancement and they use this type of argument when refusing to accept the copyright laws that are in force in most technologically advanced countries. This idea is often applied to patent
Patent

A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a term of patent in exchange for a disclosure of an invention....
 laws as well.

Mere possession of unauthorized copy could be a ground for an offense depending on provisions of existing laws of a country.

The effects of copyright infringement on digital culture


Peer to peer (P2P) file sharing
File sharing

File sharing is a method of distributing electronically stored information such as computer programs and digital media. File sharing can be implemented in a variety of storage and distribution models....
 technologies have lowered the threshold of knowledge needed to acquire massive amounts of information. Large networks have been created which are dedicated to share knowledge, but these same networks can be used to distribute infringing material. Identifying infringing material isn't always trivial, since the users can modify the name and content of material being shared.

Software piracy is illegal due to the potential economic loss that it inflicts on the copyright owner. Software authors argue that even if it is assumed that only a portion of those infringing the author's copyright would ever have bought the software, the author would still suffer a theoretically economic loss as a result.

Software authors suggest that copyright infringement negatively affects the economy by decreasing the profits that allow for further development and growth within the software industry. The U.S. is the country most affected, as they provide about 80% of the world's software. Software counterfeiting is claimed to be a large problem by some, resulting in a (theoretically) revenue loss of US $11-12 billion, China and Vietnam being the biggest offenders .

It has been suggested that counterfeit software will decline so much as to be eliminated in the future, but there are measures being taken and rules being put into place to work towards this goal. "In the United States, for example, the level of piracy has been reduced from 48% in 1989 to 25% in 2002." Rise of quality in free alternative software also helps to lower the use of copied software worldwide. Illegally copying software is seen by some software producers as a "lesser evil" than actually buying or illegally copying a competitor's software. Jeff Raikes, a Microsoft
Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a multinational corporation computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of computer software products for computing devices....
 executive, stated that "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else." He also added that "We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products. What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software."

Traian Basescu
Traian Basescu

Traian Basescu is a Romanian politician and former Merchant Navy officer. He is the current President of Romania, after winning the office in the Romanian presidential election, 2004, and being inaugurated on December 20, 2004....
, the president of Romania
Romania

Romania is a country located in Southeastern Europe Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian Mountains, bordering on the Black Sea....
, stated that "piracy helped the young generation discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania."

Microsoft admits that piracy of its Windows operating system has helped give it huge market share (90%) in China that will boost its revenues when these users "go legit." Bill Gates said, "It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not."

Types of copyright infringement of software

According to the Business Software Alliance
Business Software Alliance

The Business Software Alliance is a trade group established in 1988 and representing a number of the world's largest software makers. Its principal activity is trying to stop copyright infringement of software produced by its members—an activity it claims, using a lost sales metric, to cost the software industry over United States dol...
, a lobby group formed by software makers, copyright infringement of software takes several forms, which include the following:

"CD-R infringement" is the illegal copying of software using CD-R recording technology.

"Commercial Use of Non-commercial Software" is using educational or other commercial-use-restricted software in violation of the software license is a form of copyright infringement.

"Counterfeiting" is the duplication and sale of unauthorized copies of software in such a manner as to try to pass off the illegal copy as if it were a legitimate copy produced or authorized by the legal publisher. This is also often a violation of trademark
TradeMark

TradeMark is a tall, primarily residential, skyscraper in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was completed in 2007 and has 28 floors. There are 200 hundred residential units....
 laws.

"Hard-disk loading" occurs when an individual or company sells computers preloaded with illegal copies of software.

"Internet infringement" is the illegal uploading of software on to the Internet for anyone to copy.

"OEM infringement/unbundling" is known as OEM (original equipment manufacturer
Original Equipment Manufacturer

OEM stands for "Original Equipment Manufacturer".An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM is typically a company that uses a component made by a second company in its own product, or sells the product of the second company under its own brand....
) software, is only legally sold with specified hardware. Whether misappropriating OEM software constitutes copyright infringement is subject to interpretation - a software publisher would have a difficult time prosecuting a person who has successfully purchased a genuine OEM copy but who, according to the license agreement, would have been supposed to purchase a retail copy. This is because a court must also consider laws relating to the commercial sales of goods such as the Uniform Commercial Code
Uniform Commercial Code

File:Uniformcommercialcode.jpgFile:Uniformcommercialcodeconfidentialdrafts.jpgThe Uniform Commercial Code is one of a number of uniform acts that have been promulgated in conjunction with efforts to harmonize the law of sales and other commercial transactions in all 50 U.S....
 in the United States, which are more established in law and which can be interpreted to prohibit or nullify licensing terms that negate the established nature of a common sale transaction.

"Softlifting" is a neologism
Neologism

A neologism is a newly coined word that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language . Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event....
 invented by anti-copyright infringement advocates, and is a term used to describe when a person purchases a single licensed copy of a software program and loads it on several machines, in violation of the terms of the license agreement.

"Unrestricted client access infringement" occurs when a copy of a software program is copied onto an organization's servers and the organization's network "clients" are allowed to freely access the software in violation of the terms of the license agreement.

Objections to the term "piracy"

Copyright Infringement
Copyright infringement

Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of material that is covered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works....
 has been called piracy since at least 1703. In the forward to Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe , born Daniel Foe, was an United Kingdom writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe....
's corrected edition of The True-Born Englishman, the author makes reference to "pirates and paragraph men" who distributed copies of his poem on the streets. Some modern groups object to the term "software piracy", however, believing that such a term unfairly equates copyright violators with murderers and thieves. Evidence of this can be seen in the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to distribute and modify computer software without restriction....
's list of confusing words

Types of Software Piracy

Industrial piracy An individual or group attempts duplication and distribution on a large scale for profit.

Corporate piracy Unprotected contents are shared through net­works such as peer-to-peer, LAN and Internet. Many of these are on servers in Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
 or Thailand
Thailand

The Kingdom of Thailand is an independent country that lies in the heart of Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Laos and Myanmar, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and Myanmar....
, and the Zlob trojan is known to be distributed via these means.

Reseller piracy Involves computer hardware companies selling ma­chines with illegal copies of software preloaded on their hard drive.

Home piracy Includes from trading disks with friends to running a not-for-profit bulletin board system
Bulletin board system

File:Monochrome-bbs.pngA Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running list of BBS software that allows User to Telecommunication circuit and Logging to the system using a terminal program....
 for the purpose of illegal software distribution.

See also


  • Abandonware
    Abandonware

    Abandonware refers to computer software that is no longer sold or supported, or whose copyright ownership may be unclear for various reasons. While the term has been applied largely to older games, other classes of software are sometimes described as such....
  • Australian copyright law
    Australian copyright law

    Australian copyright law emerged from British and colonial models of the early 20th Century. It reflects international standards found in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, other multilateral treaties, and more recently, the U.S.-Australia Free Trade Agreement....
  • Computer Associates Int. Inc. v. Altai Inc.
    Computer Associates Int. Inc. v. Altai Inc.

    Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693 is a leading decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on how to establish copyright infringement for software....
  • Copyleft
    Copyleft

    File:Copyleft.svgCopyleft is a Word play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to remove restrictions on distributing copies and modified versions of a work for others and requiring that the same freedoms be preserved in modified versions....
  • Dongle
    Dongle

    A dongle is a small piece of Computer hardware that connects to a computer. Electrically dongles mostly appear as two-interface security tokens with transient data flow that does not interfere with other dongle functions and a pull communication that reads security data from the dongle....
  • Federation Against Software Theft
    Federation Against Software Theft

    The Federation Against Software Theft is a not-for-profit organisation, formed in 1984 by the software industry with the aim of eradicating Software theft in the UK....
  • File sharing
    File sharing

    File sharing is a method of distributing electronically stored information such as computer programs and digital media. File sharing can be implemented in a variety of storage and distribution models....
  • iLok Smart Key
  • Matrix Software License Protection System
    Matrix Software License Protection System

    Matrix Software License Protection System is a brand that provides solutions for software license protection and internet login with the headquarters in Germany and locations in Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Canada and USA....
  • Product activation
    Product activation

    Product activation is a license validation procedure required by some Proprietary software computer software programs. Specifically, product activation refers to a method where a software application Hash function hardware serial numbers and an ID number specific to the product's license to generate a unique CD key....
  • Software copyright
    Software copyright

    Software copyright, the relatively recent extension of copyright law to Machine-readable medium software. It is used by proprietary software companies to prevent the unauthorized copying of their software....
  • Warez
    Warez

    File:Pro piracy demonstration.jpg"Warez" refers primarily to copyrighted works traded in violation of copyright law. The term generally refers to illegal releases by organized groups, as opposed to peer-to-peer file sharing between friends or large groups of people with similar interest using a darknet ....
  • Windows Genuine Advantage
    Windows Genuine Advantage

    Windows Genuine Advantage is an anti-Copyright infringement system created by Microsoft that enforces Microsoft Windows online validation of the licencing of several recent Microsoft operating systems when accessing several Microsoft Windows services, such as Windows Update, and downloading Windows components from the Microsoft Download Cent...


External links

  • from
  • by The Linux Information Project (LINFO)
  • from the Business Software Alliance
    Business Software Alliance

    The Business Software Alliance is a trade group established in 1988 and representing a number of the world's largest software makers. Its principal activity is trying to stop copyright infringement of software produced by its members—an activity it claims, using a lost sales metric, to cost the software industry over United States dol...
  • , BBC, Thursday, 23 June 2005.


Further reading

  • Siva Vaidhyanathan. Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity. New York University Press, 2001. 243 pages. ISBN 0-8147-8806-8