Piracy is robbery, an infringement of a copyright. Therefore anything that is copyrighted can be pirated and almost anything worth copywriting is worth pirating.
Small time infringement is so commonplace - taping a television show, photocopying sheet music, or recording music for a friend – that it is hard to imagine that it hurts anyone.
Software piracy takes many forms. Examples of end-user piracy include friends loaning distribution discs to each other and installing software on more computers than the license allows.
Several major cases involving the unauthorized copying of software have been widely reported.
This include lawsuit by software associations against major corporations that allowed unauthorized copying of their programs.
Loss of commercial revenue due to software pricy in 2011, worldwide estimated 58.8 billon US dollars.
This lost revenue deprives software companies of the remuneration to which they are entitled for their efforts in developing and distributing software.
Analysts believe that the internet is a major factor in piracy growth. In fact, access to high speed internet connections makes it much easier to download large software flies quickly.
In the United Sates, commercial software packages are protected by the Computer Software Piracy and Counterfeiting Amendment to the Federal Copyright Act.
In most cases, the purchase of a commercial software package is really a payment to licenses its fair use by an individual end user.
Software Piracy
