Software Piracy: A Study on Illegal Copyright and Distribution of Software

This study delves into the issue of software piracy, covering illegal copyright, distribution, and use of software. It includes case studies on Microsoft, Apple, and Windows piracy attacks, along with recommendations to prevent such incidents. The study highlights the importance of strong security measures and strict licensing to safeguard software programs.

Running Head: SOFTWARE PIRACY 0
Software
Piracy
Student details:

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Executive Summary
The following study of software piracy covers the matters related to illegal copyright,
distribution and use of software in the unethical ways. The idea of copying has popularized these
days as the firms have started earning abnormal profits. According to the business software
alliance (BSA) around 36% of the total software presently in use is stolen i.e. it is used by other
in unethical manners. Once you purchase a commercial software package, an end user license
agreement helps in protecting the software program from copyright infringement. As per the
license, agreement of EULA an admin can keep a copy of the software if required within his
custody as a purpose of security. In case, if the original software is lost the admin can restore the
software from copy. The paper initially gives a brief about software piracy later it adds on a
background to software piracy it includes the description about software piracy. It includes the
derivative summaries of case study of different organizations who have witnessed software
breach. Moreover, the paper also proposes recommendations for these organizations that have
faced software break or piracy attacks. The paper includes real life case studies or real life
instances, which have gained popularity worldwide.

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background......................................................................................................................................3
Summary drawn from Real IT business..........................................................................................3
Microsoft......................................................................................................................................4
Piracy attack over Apple Inc. applications...................................................................................4
Piracy attack over Window and Adobe........................................................................................5
Recommendations............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Bibliography....................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The following paper is based on Software Piracy, it an act of stealing the legally protected
software. Every organization develops a software system to keep its data organized but
sometimes in order to earn profits and personal benefits these software systems are copied by
other users. In the following paper, three different organizations are chosen which have faced act
of software piracy- Microsoft, iPhone and Alto’s adventure (a game for androids). The pirated
software can be extremely harmful for a device, all of the above the pirated software are
unproductive as it do not come with manuals. The software piracy faced by these organizations
are discussed and evaluated to draw specific and satisfactory recommendation to cure the
situations. These recommendations are drawn after analyzing the situation precisely. All these
case studies are of real business organizations presently functioning in the marketplace and the
recommendations mentioned here are propounded after reading the recommendations of eminent
scholars. Lastly, an accurate conclusion is drawn out of the study to recognize the fallouts.
Background
Every organization develops a software system to keep its data organized but sometimes in order
to earn supernormal profits and personal benefits these software systems are copied by other
users. It is an unlawful act of stealing the legally protected data by unethical means. Thus, these
pirates are liable to bear losses like heavy penalties and sometimes imprisonment. The penalties
are applied to the user who illegally reproduces copyrighted workings. The Software piracy
penalties apply to users that illegally reproduce copyrighted works. Once it is determined that the
software is pirated is knowingly there are no relaxations in granting punishments whereas if it
happened unknowingly is completely different scenario. Herein, examples of real business
organizations are brought to light which have witnessed the software piracy. After reading the
case studies of these organizations, recommendations are made. These recommendations are apt
and if followed properly can act as a savior for these organizations (Ogheneovo & Japheth,
2016).
Summary drawn from Real IT business
Herein, three different organizations are chosen. Let us discuss how these organizations.

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Microsoft
Microsoft is an American multinational technological company, which develops, licenses,
supports and sells computer software, electronic consumer items, personal processors and
correlated facilities. A company like Microsoft, which holds strong software security system,
witnessed a major piracy attack. There are numerous websites in the market, which are offering
the Microsoft software and web browsers, which can be, download directly. These websites have
managed to crack the safety nets of Microsoft and provided an option to the consumers. The
websites used a common denominator was to sell Microsoft office at cheap rates because it is
one of the most downloaded and used Microsoft software program. The websites like
getmoffice.com, softwareonlinedeal.com and softwareproworld.com are the most popular
websites, which provides the paid software program at less cost (Gomes et al., 2018).
It was observed that the softwareonlinedeal has managed to earn impressive revenue by selling
the Microsoft office professional at $189.99 whereas the original price of program is $439.99.
This states that softwareonlinedeal is proving around 57% of discounts to the consumers. These
attractive offers somehow attract the consumers and compel them to download/purchase
software. These duplicate software although is available at cheap rates but it is corrupted within
few months (Burruss et al., 2019). All these websites spoil the market image of Microsoft, as this
software purchased from unauthentic sources get corrupted in few months eventually spoils the
market image of company. The software piracy theme was mentioned on Microsoft’s own
websites now Microsoft is planning to develop secured data centers, these data centers will keep
the data safe and secured. This will safeguard the data from being pirated (El-Bialy et al., 2016).
As case of software-piracy came into sight in the year 2009 in Los Reyes, a town in Mexico
State. During this raid, more than 300 armed law enforcement agents went to the place to catch
the culprits. When the cops reached house they found 50 machines that were used to copy the
CD (s) and helped in making the counterfeit versions of Microsoft office and Xbox video games.
Piracy attack over Apple Inc. applications
Recently a Alto’s Adventure witnessed eminent success on the iOs platform. As the game
became popular, android marketers took an initiative to launch the product for android users as
well. Therefore, the android play stores started offering the game but the play store for android
i.e. the Google play store often offers most of the applications free of cost (Ma'mun et al.,

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2017).The users are not required to pay any other additional charges to get the applications.
When the Alto’s adventure was launched on android, it became a massive hit. Later it became a
matter of concern for the game developers as people were installing it for free. There are large
number of hackers who hacked the gaming software and provided it for free through websites.
This reduced the revenue rate of the company who developed the game. While having a
conversation Ryan Holowaty, Snowman stated that there shall be some limitations over the users
who are downloading the game for free. He mentioned that the users may only get access to the
new features and additional resources in game only when they will purchase the original modal
(Forbes, 2019).
Piracy attack over Window and Adobe
A $100 million software piracy case came into sight in the year 2015 in United States. Tammy
Dickinson the US attorney for western district of Missouri stated that the investigation began
from Kansas city. A group of 6 people were found guilty for stealing the software codes of
adobe and windows. This group has managed to crack the software security chains of windows.
It was able to counterfeit the software windows 7 and windows XP (WRITER, 2019). Along
with windows, the group additionally managed to hack the copyrighted software system of
Adobe. The stolen Software included about 170000 access codes for Adobe, Microsoft and
Windows (Metrailler & Fakhraei, 2017). During the investigation the investigators have seized
assets of worth $20 million who were estimated to be sold for more than the price of $100
million. The group used to sell the pirated software to thousands of online customers who
purchased it from them in order to save money (McDaniel, 2019). The six people who are found
guilty are Casey Lee Ross, Rex Yang, Matthew Lockwood, Reza Davachi, Maryland, Schwartz
and Arunachalam Annamalai, all of them were residing in Los Vegas, Nevada (Economictimes,
2015).
Recommendations
Herein, three cases were considered each of these firms faced similar problem of software piracy.
There are numerous ways, which can result, helpful in getting rid of the situations. Firstly the
firms should develop a crystal clear policy which states that company holds patent right for all
the software programs developed by the company. it should also be mentioned that whether these
rights have an access for copyrights of not. Moreover, the company must also highlight the

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charges over copying/ hacking or transcription of the software developed by respective firms.
These charges can be in form of currency, imprisonment or the seizure of licenses of the firm
performing acts of duplication (Athow, 2019).
The companies should get the document of anti-piracy statement signed by the employees. Under
this agreement, it should be made clear that if the act of providing the data to other sources is a
punishable offense. The person indulged in the following will be sued and is liable to pay heavy
fines.
The companies must keep the software inventories to ensure that if any sought of piracy attack
takes place they have a backup plan. The licensing of the software developed by the companies
should be strict (Athow, 2019).
Apart from the documentation and legal processes the company should develop strong security
nets to safeguard their programs from theft. Unbreakable codes should be developed which the
hackers cannot crack easily.
In addition to this, companies should provide an authentication key with each software i.e. when
the user is about to install the software , he/she is required to provide the authentication key just
like one time password which will be generated by the company. without unlocking this
password the software cannot be downloaded. This technique will help the companies in
safeguarding the users from the pirated software sold in market. it should be noticed that this will
firstly help the organization to keep a measure of the total number of users using the specific
software program also, it will give the user an assurance that the software purchased by him/her
is original (Brown , 2016).
Microsoft earlier used one of the most effective techniques of getting rid from piracy attacks but
now it has abandoned such initiatives. Microsoft developed an initiative of anti-piracy i.e. play it
safe, it was a global initiative to make people and organizations aware of the piracy attacks.
Clients and industries can reduce their digital risks by ensuring that that they keep their software
programs updated with the security patches. Both the users and organizations must use authentic
and legal servers, they should avoid visiting risky websites which may cause damage to their
software and system. As discussed above there are numerous illegal and proscribed websites,

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which provides the pirated software at no cost. The clients and organizations must avoid using
the older versions of software, which have reached end of their life or are no longer, supported.
These are some of the major recommendations, which should be followed by the organizations
and clients to protect themselves from the attack of software piracy (Foye, 2017).
Conclusion
From the above report, it can be concluded that for IT sector the software security system is
essential. In order to secure, the software of systems it is required for the companies to develop
strong and resilient security nets which can protect the data and patented software of
organizations from getting hacked. Herein, the cases of three of software piracy witnessed by
different organizations. Later in the report some recommendations are made which can be
followed by all the organizations in general. The recommendations have put major stress over
how the companies can safeguard themselves from facing piracy attacks by developing new
software security programs.

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Bibliography
Athow, D., 2019. Why Microsoft could be dropping the ball on software piracy. [Online]
Available at: https://www.techradar.com/in/news/why-microsoft-could-be-dropping-the-ball-on-
software-piracy [Accessed 12 September 2019].
Brown , M., 2016. Android’s Piracy Problem Is Forcing Developers To Give Away Games:
‘Alto’s Adventure’ Latest Freebie. [Online] Available at: https://www.ibtimes.com/androids-
piracy-problem-forcing-developers-give-away-games-altos-adventure-latest-2303552 [Accessed
12 September 2019].
Burruss, G.W., Holt, T.J. & Bossler, A., 2019. Revisiting the suppression relationship between
social learning and self-control on software piracy.. Social Science Computer Review, 37(2),
pp.178-95.
Economictimes, 2015. Indian, 5 others plead guilty in $100 million software piracy case.
[Online] Available at: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/indian-5-others-
plead-guilty-in-100-million-software-piracy-case/articleshow/50235964.cms [Accessed 14
September 2019].
El-Bialy, N., Andrés, A.R. & Hawash, R., 2016. Explaining software piracy using a new set of
indicators. ournal of the Knowledge Economy, 7(2), pp.526-44.
Forbes, 2019. iPhone Versus Android And The Impact Of Software Piracy. [Online] Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2016/02/03/android-piracy-vs-apple-app-store/
#2d4f6b81139a [Accessed 12 September 2019].
Foye, , 2017. Microsoft Australia smacks reseller with $1 million fine for software piracy.
[Online] Available at: https://www.crn.com.au/news/microsoft-australia-smacks-resellers-with-
1-million-fine-for-software-piracy-459039 [Accessed 12 September 2019].
Gomes, N.D., Cerqueira, P.A. & Alçada-Almeida, L., 2018. Determinants of worldwide software
piracy losses. Technological and Economic Development of Economy, 24(1), pp.48-66.
Ma'mun, N., Dhewanto, W., Ronaldi, R. & Surendro, K., 2017. ESTABLISHING MICROSOFT
RESEARCH CENTRE IN INDONESIA: A ROAD PATH TOWARD EXPORTING
INDONESIAN SOFTWARE. Jurnal Teknobisnis, 2(1), pp.49-56.
McDaniel, J.J., 2019. Piracy and Intellectual Property Theft in the Internet Era.. IGI Global,
pp.59-70.
Metrailler, G. & Fakhraei, A., 2017. Software product piracy monetization process. U.S. Patent,
9(836), p.730.

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Ogheneovo, E. & Japheth, R.B., 2016. Combating Software Piracy Using Code Encryption
Technique. The International Journal of Engineering and Science, 5(1), pp.18-24.
WRITER, H., 2019. Case Analysis: Apple Inc. [Online] Available at:
https://newyorkessays.com/essay-case-analysis-apple-inc/ [Accessed 12 Sepetember 2019].