What is Piracy?

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Software piracy has become an important topic affecting the software industry internationally, including individual and business users of all software products worldwide.

Software piracy is the failure to comply with software licence agreements. Piracy, in any form, is an unlawful action and offenders are liable to either civil or criminal prosecution. It is important that all software users and resellers understand the different forms of software piracy in order to comply with the law and protect themselves and their business.

The various forms of software piracy are:

   

End User Copying - A licenced software user passes their software onto friends, business colleagues and family to copy indiscriminately. Or in the case of volume software licences, users and/or businesses under report the number of computers in which the software is installed. Reseller Copying - Resellers pass their software onto their clients. Counterfeiting - Criminals copy the software and collateral, such as manuals, and sell it as the original product.

Software piracy negatively impacts customers, resellers and software vendors. Lower vendor revenues, as a result of software piracy, limit the industry's ability to re-invest funds in research and development (R&D) and continuously maintain and improve service and support infrastructures. Ongoing investment in R&D ensures that software vendors have the ability to keep their users at the forefront of the latest technology developments.

Furthermore, purchasing pirate software can have a damaging effect on your company as the software may introduce viruses to your system, destroying mission critical data. Users of pirate products do not benefit from the quality and reliability guarantees provided to lawful, licenced customers and will be unable to access technical software support.