FREE online courses on the Basics of a Computer - WHAT IS SOFTWARE - Software Piracy

 

Software packages are published by software houses and a copyrighter. Copying a package without the publisher's permission is usually an offence and punishable by a fine and/or imprisonment. Despite this, unauthorized (illegal) copies of software are easily available, and in fact quite common in India. This piracy of software, as in the case of videotapes, is extremely detrimental to the software industry. Experts have estimated that 95% of PC software is pirated. Reasons for this are manifold:

 

1.       As legal vendors of foreign software were previously not available in India, people found it easier to get pirated software through friends instead of taking the trouble of importing it. As Indian software houses were not selling packages those days, the industry did nothing to stop this. It has now become difficult to convince someone to buy software which he is used to getting free.

 

2.       To push software sales without incurring any additional costs, hardware vendors often gave 'free' pirated copies of popular software to the customer. Even the operating system on many PC's was pirated. Though the hardware manufacturers have now decided in principle not to give pirated software, it is difficult for them to keep tabs on so many salesmen, dealers, agents and computer shops.

 

3.       With such rampant piracy, and the user not being aware of either the legal issues or the advantages of legal software, the persons selling legal software find it difficult to justify purchase of software, which was originally available free and can still be illegally procured at as low as 10% of the legal price.

 

Piracy is now being fought by increasing user awareness of penalties and advantages of support of legal software. As more and more people buy legal software, it will be possible for sellers to take advantage of volumes and cut the price down.