Copyright infringement of software

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The copyright infringement of software (also known as software piracy) refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer software. Copyright infringement of this kind is extremely common in the United States, Mexico, China, Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Zimbabwe and several other parts of the world. Most countries have copyright laws which apply to software, but they are better enforced in some countries than others. Since a dispute over WTO membership between Iran and USA, which led to the legalization in Iran of the distribution of software without the permission of any copyright holder (see Iran and copyright issues), there have been fears that world governments might try to use copyright laws and enforcement politically.

The rate of copyright infringement of software in the Asia-Pacific region has been estimated at 53% for 2004[1] China is the largest producer of pirated products in the world - software is no exception. The Business Software Alliance estimates that in 2006 82% of the PC software used in China was pirated. After joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) China has adjusted its Intellectual Property (IP) laws to comply with the WTO Agreement on Trade - Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The laws are in place but are ignored.[2]

Contents

[edit] Activities that may constitute infringement

Copyright infringement of software may refer to the following kinds of practices when done without the permission of the copyright holder:

  • Creating a copy and/or selling it. This is the act that some people refer to as "software piracy". This is copyright infringement in most countries and is unlikely to be fair use or fair dealing if the work remains commercially available. In some countries the laws may allow the selling of a version modified for use by blind people, students (for educational product) or similar. Differences in legislation may also make the copyright void in some jurisdictions, but not the others.
  • Creating a copy and giving it to someone else. This constitutes copyright infringement in most jurisdictions. It is not infringing under specific circumstances such as fair use and fair dealing.
  • Creating a copy to serve as a backup. This is seen as a fundamental right of the software-buyer in some countries, e.g., Germany, Spain, Brazil and Philippines. It can be infringement, depending on the laws and the case law interpretations of those laws, currently undergoing changes in many countries. In the US, legal action was taken against companies which made backup copies while repairing computers (see MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc. (1993)) and as a result, US law was changed so that making temporary backup copies of software while repairing computers is not copyright infringement.
  • Renting the original software. Software licenses often never restrict the usual right of a purchaser of a copyrighted work to let others borrow the work. In some jurisdictions the validity of such restrictions are disputed, but some require permission from the copyright holder to allow renting the software.
  • Buying the original software. Licenses never say that the buyer does not buy the software but instead pays for the right to use the software. In the US, the first-sale doctrine, Softman v. Adobe [3] and Novell, Inc. v. CPU Distrib., Inc. ruled that software sales are purchases, not licenses, and resale, including unbundling, is lawful regardless of a contractual prohibition. The reasoning in Softman v. Adobe suggests that resale of student licensed versions, provided they are accurately described as such, is also not infringing.
  • Bulletin Board Sharing/Internet Piracy- Albacea et al (2005) states that this infringement occurs when System Operators share (by electronic transfer) copyrighted materials on bulletin boards or the internet for users to download.

[edit] Existing and proposed laws

Main articles: Copyright infringement and History of copyright law

To many of these attempts at circumventing these end user license agreements (EULA) software vendors counter that if a user somehow obtains software without agreeing to or becoming bound by the end user license agreement, then they do not have any license to use the software at all.

In most third world countries, the term of a copyright never exceeds any useful life a program may have. The oldest legacy computer systems used today are still less than 40 years old. The copyright on them will not expire in the United States and Europe until about 2030. Changes in computer hardware, operating systems, network environments and user expectations usually make programs obsolete much faster than in 70 years (the current copyright length).

Under the proposed US Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA), a controversial model law that has been adopted in Virginia and Maryland, software manufacturers are granted broad rights to shut down unauthorized software copiers without court intervention similar to some of the provisions found in Title II of the US DMCA, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, which allows copyright holders to demand that an online service provider (OSP) expeditiously block access to infringing materials. If the OSP complies, it is granted a safe harbor, providing it immunity from infringement claims. If it doesn't comply, it doesn't become liable, but may instead rely on the protection of the Communications Decency Act.

Title I of the US DMCA, the WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act has provisions that prevent persons from "circumvent[ing] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work". Thus if a software manufacturer has some kind of software, dongle or password access device installed in the software any attempt to bypass such a copy prevention scheme may be actionable — though the US Copyright Office is currently reviewing anticircumvention rulemaking under DMCA — anticircumvention exemptions that have been in place under the DMCA include those in software designed to filter websites that are generally seen to be inefficient (child safety and public library website filtering software) and the circumvention of copy prevention mechanisms that have malfunctioned, have caused the software to become inoperable or which are no longer supported by their manufacturers.

Most commercially exploited proprietary software is developed in the United States, Japan and Europe, hence for those located in economically disadvantaged economies it can be prohibitively expensive to pay for all the end user licenses for those products rather than to purchase just one license and then copy the software without paying any additional licensing fees. Some critics in the developing countries of the world see this as an indirect technology transfer tax on their country preventing technological advancement and they use this type of argument when refusing to accept the copyright laws that are in force in most technologically advanced countries. This idea is often applied to patent laws as well.

Mere possession of unauthorized copy could be a ground for an offense depending on provisions of existing laws of a country.

[edit] The effects of copyright infringement on digital culture

Peer to peer (P2P) file sharing technologies have lowered the threshold of knowledge needed to acquire massive amounts of information. Large networks have been created which are dedicated to share knowledge, but these same networks can be used to distribute infringing material. Identifying infringing material isn't always trivial, since the users can modify the name of material being shared.

Software piracy is illegal due to the perceived economic loss it inflicts on the copyright owner. Even if it is assumed that only a portion of those infringing the author's copyright would ever have bought the software, the author will still suffer an economic loss as a result.

Software authors suggest that copyright infringement negatively affects the economy by decreasing the profits that allow for further development and growth within the software industry. The U.S. is the country most affected, as they provide about 80% of the world's software.[1] Software counterfeiting is claimed to be a large problem by some, resulting in a revenue loss of US $11-12 billion, China and Vietnam being the biggest offenders [2].

It has been suggested that counterfeit software will decline so much as to be eliminated in the future, but there are measures being taken and rules being put into place to work towards this goal. "In the United States, for example, the level of piracy has been reduced from 48% in 1989 to 25% in 2002."[4] Rise of quality in free alternative software also helps to lower the use of copied software worldwide. Illegally copying software is seen by some software producers as a "lesser evil" than actually buying or illegally copying a competitor's software. Jeff Raikes, a Microsoft executive, stated that "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else." He also added [3] that "We understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the installed base of people who are using our products. What you hope to do over time is convert them to licensing the software."

Traian Băsescu, the president of Romania, stated that "piracy helped the young generation discover computers. It set off the development of the IT industry in Romania."[5]

[edit] Types of copyright infringement of software

According to the Business Software Alliance, copyright infringement of software takes several forms, which include the following.

"CD-R infringement" is the illegal copying of software using CD-R recording technology.

"Commercial Use of Non-commercial Software" is using educational or other commercial-use-restricted software in violation of the software license is a form of copyright infringement.

"Counterfeiting" is the duplication and sale of unauthorized copies of software in such a manner as to try to pass off the illegal copy as if it were a legitimate copy produced or authorized by the legal publisher. This is also often a violation of trademark laws.

"Hard-disk loading" occurs when an individual or company sells computers preloaded with illegal copies of software.

"Internet infringement" is the illegal uploading of software on to the Internet for anyone to copy.

"OEM infringement/unbundling" is known as OEM (original equipment manufacturer) software, is only legally sold with specified hardware. Whether misappropriating OEM software constitutes copyright infringement is subject to interpretation - a software publisher would have a difficult time prosecuting a person who has successfully purchased a genuine OEM copy but who, according to the license agreement, would have been supposed to purchase a retail copy. This is because a court must also consider laws relating to the commercial sales of goods such as the Uniform Commercial Code in the United States, which are more established in law and which can be interpreted to prohibit or nullify licensing terms that negate the established nature of a common sale transaction.

"Softlifting" is a neologism invented by anti-copyright infringement advocates, and is a term used to describe when a person purchases a single licensed copy of a software program and loads it on several machines, in violation of the terms of the license agreement.

"Unrestricted client access infringement" occurs when a copy of a software program is copied onto an organization's servers and the organization's network "clients" are allowed to freely access the software in violation of the terms of the license agreement.

[edit] Objections to the term "piracy"

Copyright Infringement has been called piracy since at least 1703. In the forward to Daniel Defoe's corrected edition of The True-Born Englishman, the author makes reference to "pirates and paragraph men" who distributed copies of his poem on the streets. [6] Some modern groups object to the term "software piracy", however, believing that such a term unfairly equates copyright violators with murderers and thieves. Evidence of this can be seen in the Free Software Foundation's list of confusing words [7]

[edit] Types of Software Piracy

Industrial piracy

An individual or group attempts duplication and distribution on a large scale for profit.

Corporate piracy

Unprotected contents are shared through net­works such as peer-to-peer, LAN and Internet.

Reseller piracy

Involves computer hardware companies selling ma­chines with illegal copies of software preloaded on their hard drive.

Home piracy

Includes everything from trading disks with friends to running a not-for-profit bulletin board for the purpose of illegal software distribution.

[edit] Impact on Workplaces

According to the journal published by Frederick Gallegos[citation needed], they found that 90% of business employees believed that their colleagues copied software illegally.[citation needed] They also found that over 50% of managers indicated that they had committed software piracy.[citation needed] Males copied software illegally more frequently than females and younger students were more likely to pirate software than older students.[citation needed]

[edit] References

  1. International Journal of Research in Marketing, December 2003 (Volume 20, No. 4), "How many pirates should a software firm tolerate?"
  2. Journal of Business, 2004, (Volume 77, No. 2),“Software Piracy: Market penetration in the Presence of Network Externalities”
  3. Albacea, E., Payongayong M. T. and A. Pinpin (2005) Computer Ethics.UPOU Los Baños Philippines. p 78.
  4. G.Frederick, (2007) Software Piracy: Some Facts, Figures, and Issues.
  1. ^ BSA - 2007 Global Piracy Study
  2. ^ http://w3.bsa.org/globalstudy//upload/2005-2006%20Global%20Piracy%20Study.pdf:U.S. - China Economic and Security Review Commission June 8, 2006. Hearings USCC.gov http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/20006hearings/written_testimonies/06_06_08wrts/06_06_7_8_chow_daniel.php
  3. ^ Softman-V-Adobe | Linux Journal
  4. ^ Software and Information Industry Association page on Piracy
  5. ^ Nathan Davis. Thanks for letting us pirate. 5 February 2007.
  6. ^ Ken Hunt, Dont' Fear The Pirates,Toronto Globe & Mail, Nov. 27, 2007
  7. ^ http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html].


[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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[edit] Further reading

  • Siva Vaidhyanathan. Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity. New York University Press, 2001. 243 pages. ISBN 0-8147-8806-8