The Software Piracy Issue

Essay by oscillateHigh School, 12th grade August 2004

download word file, 2 pages 3.3

Software is a major part of our lives, with technology substantially climbing at a large rate. Software can be anything from operating systems, email handlers to games. Free software is anything but good for the consumer or developer. It consists in many different forms: trial ware (demo software), Freeware, Shareware and Piracy. Unlike more physical products such as hardware, modern advance technology has allowed software to be duplicated with almost zero effort or cost (piracy). This causes the problem to widespread - anyone is able pirate software. However, free software and piracy will not benefit the consumer and or the developer because of its many devious points. This encourages minors to break the law, bringing down software quality and putting workers out of jobs.

Software piracy affects the IT Industry in a big way. Piracy will hurt existing software companies, even driving them out of business. According to www.bsa.org,

retail sales have gone down an estimated $11 billion in software revenues, due to piracy. Companies have lost a lot of money because fewer copies of the software are being sold, and more resources have to be put into prevention of piracy. This means that the research of the products will decrease and software developers will lose their job.

Software manufacturers have tried to prevent software piracy, using a range of methods such as serial numbers, where the software can only be used with the CD in the computer. The user is then required to register the product online and the serial number is then laser locked in to prevent piracy. Not only did these methods frustrate and make it more inconvenient for legitimate users to use the software, but these methods have easily been overcome by hackers around the world that hack into these protection devices and then...