SOFTWARE PIRACY AND ETHICS

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What is Software Piracy ?

• Adobe: Software piracy is the illegal distribution and/or reproduction of Adobe software applications or fonts for business or personal use.

• The unauthorized use, reproduction, distribution, or transmission of copyrighted material.

• Illegal copying of programs, counterfeiting and distributing software, purchasing pirated software and renting unauthorized software.

PIRACY METHOS

• Licensed user duplication for unlicensed users

• Commercial reproduction

• Software Cracks/Key generator

Reports on Software piracy Cases

• IIPA claims US businesses lost an estimated almost US$3 billion in revenues in 2003 due to copyright violations in China alone. The software piracy rate in China is estimated in a range of 92% for business software applications to 96% for entertainment software.

• CHICAGO – Seventeen defendants from across the United States and Europe were indicted by a federal grand jury today for allegedly conspiring to infringe the copyright of more than 5,000 computer software programs that were available through a hidden Internet site, the Justice Department announced.

• Twelve of the defendants were members or leaders of an international organization of software pirates known as “Pirates with Attitudes,” an underground group that disseminates stolen copies of software, including programs that are not yet commercially available.

Some history of software piracy

• Software was not recognized as intellectual property until the Computer Software Copyright Act of 1980.

• Origins are very innocent in nature: computer geeks meet in computer clubs• Clubs offered a way for club members to share the software that they had written with other

members.

The first act of piracy was probably something like this:

Geek 1: ..I wish I had a compiler, I would love to make my own

applications, I want to make something I call a "Spreadsheet", so I can

do my accounts with...

Geek 2:My company just bought a copy of that compiler, ill copy the disk

and bring it next month for you.

Geek 1:Oh wow man thanks, I have a copy of Edit the editor v1, ill swap

you if you like.

Geek 2: Wicked, I need an editor, its a deal!

Some history of software piracy

• Design games

many of these early software pirates went on to start some of the most successful game development companies in the world.

• Bulletin Board Systems(BBS)

groups that would race to crack and upload the latest software to their affiliated BBS

• Access all over the world • The first patent issued for a piece of software in 1983

acts of copyright infringement could be tried in court.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STEALING

• Virtual vs. physical

• sharing and curiosity vs benefit of money or power

• Benefit the community vs benefit themselves

Commercial reproduction

Piracy case Eleven individuals were convicted in a southern China court of participating in a sophisticated

counterfeiting ring that enabled them to mass-produce and distribute pirated Microsoft software globally. The group reportedly operated like an international corporation that produced and sold CDs an DVD that were not only of high quality, but packaged nearly identically to real products despite the high level of anti-piracy security measures taken by Microsoft.

Utilitarian/Consequentialist Perspective

• Stake holder: Software company• Piracy and copyright been violated• Financial damage

• Stake holder: pirates• Financial income• Taking the risk of being put into

prison

Stake holder: Community

• Help young generation discover computers Traian Basescu, Romanian president as of 2010, .said: "piracy helped the young generation discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania.“

• Short Term: Everyone can get software for free(means people who couldn’t afford it have access to it now)

• Long Term: may slow down the pace of designing new software?

Deontological Perspective

Define the issues

• People participating in a counterfeiting ring that enabled them to mass-produce and distribute pirated.

The purpose of pirates

• Financial income

Software Cracks

• +ORC

“

... Cracking it's not just about software, it's about information, about all patterns of life. To crack is to refuse to be controlled and used by others, to crack is to be free...

”

Software Cracks

What are cracks

• The modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software, usually related to protection methods: copy protection, trial/demo version, serial number, hardware key, date checks, CD check or software annoyances like nag screens and adware.

Piracy case : Angry Atari Software Developers

CodeHead released this version on Saturday, September 12, 1992 at the Glendale Atari Faire. By Sunday, before the second day of the show was even over, it was already in distribution by pirates.

Utilitarian/Consequentialist Perspective

• Stake holder: Software company• Piracy and copyright been violated• Financial damage

• Stake holder: cracker• Self content• Taking the risk of being put into prison

Stake holder: Community

• Help young generation discover computers Traian Basescu, Romanian president as of 2010, .said: "piracy helped the young generation discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania.“

• Short Term: Everyone can get software for free(means people who couldn’t afford it have access to it now)

• Long Term: may slow down the pace of designing new software

DEONTOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Define the issues

• Crackers create cracks and distribute them on Internet• People who use crack instead of purchasing software

The purpose of cracker

• Sharing• Curiosity• Competition

John Stuart Mill

“ o n liberty”

The harm principle

• Each individual has the right to act as he wants, so long as these actions do not harm others

• If crackers in BBS just decode the software without distribute it, is that will make their action justifiable?

• Each individual has the right to act as he wants, if the action ( in this case crack a software program) only directly affects the person undertaking the action, the society has no right to intervene.

SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY

• Positive right: A right obligating government to establishing legislation for the purpose of stop software

• Negative right : Software company have the right stay away from the disturbing by crackers

SOFTWARE PIRACY AND THE LAW

Piracy case “United States Attorney announced that Sabuj Pattanayek, age 21, was sentenced to 41months in federal

prison by the United States District Judge, for conspiring to violate the criminal copyright member of one of the oldest and largest international software piracy rings on the Internet.

Old times: • Until the Computer Software Copyright Act of 1980, software was not recognized as intellectual

property, so there were no laws against theft or reproduction.• Computer forensics was unheard of and most law enforcement agencies did not have computers. • Organizations such as the SPA, CAAST, BSA were offered rewards for information leading to the arrest of

a software pirate. • There were over 10,000 active BBS’ in the United States alone, and law enforcement agencies only

arrested a handful of BBS owners each year.

SOFTWARE PIRACY AND THE LAW

• Software piracy is considered organized crime and is classified as a federal offense. Federal law offenders, as defined by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, have no chance of parole. Additionally, good behaviour has little impact on their sentence.

• The average sentence in America for a convicted rapist is nine years, while the average time served is only five years. In many circumstances, a pirate receives a longer jail sentence than a convicted rapist. Law agencies are trying to make a point to the Internet community: do not be a pirate.

What's the Alternative ?

• FLOSS(Free/Libre/Open/Source Software)

• Is software that is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to use, study, change,

and improve its design through the availability of its source code. 

• Goal: fostering the development of software to be made freely available for others to copy ,use, modify , and then redistribute.

FLOSS In Practice: the linux operation system

• Early 1990s, developed Linus Torvalds UNIX system

• FLOSS work focused on the development and distribution of the linux operation system of linux that can be freely download,t he Ubunutu distribution is one of the most popular one.

“Our work is driven by a philosophy on software freedom that aims to spread and

bring the benefits of software to all parts of the world”

SOFTWARE PIRACY AND CULTURE

Different attitudes towards copyright• U.S & E.U exclusive property right• Asia inclusive property right

.

Software piracy rates :Vietnam(95%),China(92%),and Indonesia(89%)(BSA,2003)

SOFTWARE PIRACY AND CULTURE

Confucian• Confucian tradition emphasizes emulation of revered classics-and in this way,

copying expresses highest respect for the work of author( Dan Burk,2007:IOI)

(southern)African cultural tradition Ubuntu• They share the sense that individuals are relational being, ones centrally

interdependent with larger community for their very existence and sense of meaning as human being.

• 1 Who has Photoshop installed ?

• 2 Should we take consideration of culture differences refer to the software ethics? Relativism, pluralism?

What is your opinion?