Are you a PIRATE?

[TECK]

This is an interesting email I got from winNews. Please post your comments.

Are You a Software Bandit?

I recently read a study claiming that software "piracy" is on the rise. Software piracy refers to obtaining and using software you did not pay for. You might have received the software from a friend or downloaded it from the Internet. It's also considered piracy if you paid good money for the software and installed it on more than one machine.

The term "piracy" is a bit of a misnomer. Pirates are robbers. They take property from someone and deprive the owner use of said property. When a software pirate obtains software, the owner of the software can still use it and sell it. This makes things confusing because piracy doesn't fit very well into our existing laws and morals regarding theft. For most of human history, if you stole something from someone, the person you stole it from no longer had access to the stolen property.

I know many people who are considered software pirates. No, these people aren't hardened criminals or borderline personalities trying to get back at the system. He's the guy next door. He has two computers at home and installs the same copy of Windows 98 on both computers. This guy would never steal anything from anyone. Now he's considered a pirate and a criminal because he installed Windows 98 on a second computer.

Windows XP prevents this type of piracy because the RegWorm prevents you from using the same copy of Windows XP on two computers (at least for an extended period of time). However, the RegWorm (Windows Product Activation) can cripple the operating system. Microsoft had to do something, right? After all, this company accumulated over $30 billion in cash reserves without using a RegWorm before. So it's clear they need one now?

Are you a software pirate? Are software pirates "real" criminals? Most people in society don't consider it a real crime. How to you teach people that unauthorized use of software is a crime? Should we teach people that software piracy is evil and immoral? Why? Why not? What can the software industry do to reduce piracy? Is there a way to reduce piracy without crippling the software?