International Software Piracy Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive Essays

International Software Piracy Disclaimer The ideas and arguments presented in this paper are provided solely for purposes of academic discussion. The author wishes to make it clear that he neither condones nor promotes software piracy in any form, and that he encourages all software practitioners to familiarize themselves with the relevant intellectual property laws of their respective countries and to adhere to the highest level of ethics in the conduct of their professional duties. I. Background Software piracy has been around since the beginnings of personal computing. The first paper tape of a BASIC compiler passed from one hobbyist to another was essentially pirated software, although, at the time, it may not have been recognized as such, and in fact, may not even have been illegal[7]. The extension of copyright protection to software coincided with an explosive proliferation of low-cost computers and an expanding market for software packages that went beyond the hobbyist and into the commercial and mass consumer segments. As the software market matured and software vendors became multi-billion dollar enterprises, concern about piracy and the resultant lost revenue increased. The proliferation of Information Technology (IT), fostered in part by the Internet, have made piracy a global issue, with one estimate placing the loss to business world-wide in a single year at over $13 billion [1]. Though illegal in most countries, the rate of piracy world-wide remains high, even in developed countries with established traditions of protecting intellectual property (IP). For example, the United States has one of the lowest piracy rates in the world, and yet its piracy rate remains at 23%. Countries with the highest p... ...lt;http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/02/14/pirate_plays_third_world_card/>. Salon, Profits from piracy, 2002, www.salon.com, 4-May-2004, . ZDNet, Microsoft slashes Windows XP price to fend off Linux, 2003, 11-May-2004, . USA Today, Software piracy takes toll on global scale,2001, 20-May-2004, . Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academics, The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age, (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 2000) 55. Nader, Ralph, Consumer Harm in the Microsoft Case: Address to The Bazaar - An Open Source Software Event, 1999, 3-Jun-04, .