Piracy :: essays research papers

PiracyRecently, The Toronto Star published an article entitle "RCMP seizes BBS,piracy charges pending." The RCMP have possessed all figurer comp unrivaledntsbelonging to the "90 North" bulletin tabular array system in Montreal, Quebec. Theboard is charge of allowing pot the opportunity to download (get) commercialand beta (or commercial) softw be package versions. I feel that the RCMP should notcharge people that are linked to computer piracy, because the pirated softwareoffers valuable opportunity to programmers and users. Also, revenue lost to thelarge software companies is such a small amount that the effect wont be spectacularlyfelt by them and so it is not worth the policing effort unavoidable to track downthe pirates.When pirates distribute the illegal software, one could say that they arehelping, than hurting the software companies. By distributing the softwareworld wide, it creates spectacular ad for the software companies and theirproducts. Although the software company is losing profits from that particularversion, it could generate afterlife sales with other versions. Also, when thepirates distribute the software this could be a great source of test data forthe software companies. This is an effective way to gizmo any unfounded bugs inthe software program. From debugging to hacking, hackers crowd out benefit the most.They can study and learn from the advancements with in the programming.So what does all this activity divide us? This tells us the people arewilling to go to great lengths to get software at a lower cost, or mayhap inexchange for other software and that they are succeeding in their efforts.Although more than 50% of their software income is from other companies which donot pirate, this poses a problem for the software industries. By fining asingle bulletin board out of the thousands in North America, there would belittle accomplished. not to mention the fact the it is extremely difficult toprove and convict pe ople under the Copyright Act. In todays society, revenuefrom software is such a small income source for corporations such as WordPerfectCorp. These companies make their money principally from individuals purchasing extramanuals, reference material, supplementary hardware, and calling product support. software system companies are conscious of the pirate world and the changes they havemade. Some companies actually want you to take the software by using theSHAREWARE concept. In SHAREWARE one gets a chance to use demo programs and thenpay for the adequate purchase if he feels it is worthwhile. It is a bit like test driving a car, before one buys. In most cases, users are beaming and end up