Copyright infringement of software
The term software piracy refers to the unauthorized copying of copyrighted software. The stricter definition of software privacy requires that the person copying the software must profit from this activity, whereas the broader definition does not.
This is more correctly known as copyright infringement: the term "software piracy" is promoted by copyright holders. Some object that applying the term "piracy" is a dysphemism, making the unauthorized reselling of copyrighted works morally equivalent to the violent actions of pirates -- robbers on the high seas, who often murder and rape their victims. Another complication of the pirate analogy is that pirates actually deprive their victims of their property, whereas software pirates only deprive proprietary software companies of potential revenue, which may not actually exist because of market elasticity. For example, if one hundred copies of a product are sold, and five hundred copied illegally, it does not necessarily follow that five hundred extra copies would have been sold at the full price if unauthorised copying became impossible.
However, the use of "piracy" to refer to copyright infringement is well accepted by those uninvolved in the practice; it is the second meaning of the term given by the Oxford English Dictionary and the first documented use is from the 18th century:
- 1771 LUCKOMBE Hist. Print. 76 They..would suffer by this act of piracy, since it was likely to prove a very bad edition.
- 1808 Med. Jrnl. XIX. 520 He is charged with "Literary Piracy", and an "unprincipled suppression of the source from whence he drew his information".
- 1855 BREWSTER Newton I. iv. 71 With the view of securing his invention of the telescope from foreign piracy.
Some people believe that, in some jurisdictions, unauthorized users may not be violating any software licence: by using an unauthorised copy, they are not parties to a contract, and hence not bound by the licence. What about UCITA, and the DMCA: do they change this?
The not-for-profit unauthorized copying of software, music and films, sometimes known as warez, is legal in some jurisdictions.
In some developing countries, software piracy is not considered illegal. In Russia, it is legal to copy any software as long as it is not in the Russian language. This is due to most software products being made in the United States, Japan and Europe, hence for poor countries it is prohibitively expensive to import all licenses of those products rather than just one and copy it.
There are two main approaches for stopping software copyright infringement:
- legal enforcement of copy protection / digital rights management
- creation of draconian laws with severe criminal penalties against copyright infringers
See also: Warez, Copyright, Copyleft, Abandonware
This is not legal advice.