Software Piracy Sails Despite Rough Seas Ahead
Editor's Note: Recently Claudio Mattei, managing director of Digital Video, alerted Animation World Network of a very serious problem facing many animation software and production companies — the issue of software piracy. Fed by his passion for the subject, AWN decided to investigate a little further. Read his shocking letter to the editor now.
Your company needs software, but times are tough. In search of a bargain, you run a quick search online and find a sealed copy of Macromedia Studio MX, an $800 package of software, selling for $200. A few more clicks and Electric Image's $995 Universe 4 software is yours for $350. Too good to be true? It's all happening on a popular online auction site.
How can software sell for such bargain basement prices? It's simple. A high percentage of software for sale on auction sites is pirated. Some of the operators are sophisticated businesses that sell painstakingly forged software packages. Others are small outfits selling garbage bootleg copies that don't work at all. They've long been a thorn in the side of software giants like Microsoft, but increasingly pirates are harming smaller companies that create software for specialized fields like animation.
Victimizing Developers
Are a few extra installations of software on your animation company's computers really such a big deal? It's not a victimless crime. The intellectual and creative cost of developing software is extremely high. Programmers, writers, graphic artists and a host of other talent work as a team to create software, and just like a work of art, writing or music, software is protected. By denying software publishers their rightful income, you cost legitimate consumers money and take funding away from the development of better versions of software and more powerful software tools.
"Software theft is a major problem not only for our company but for everyone, since it affects jobs, wages, tax revenues and funds available for research and development," explains Sandra Boulton, director of Autodesk's anti-theft department, in a release that followed a six-figure piracy settlement with a customer who had installed software without the proper licenses.
When you buy software, you are almost always buying a license to use the software, not the copyright itself. Usually this means you can install the software on one computer and create a backup copy. Any further installations, copying, swapping or distribution of the software is a violation of federal copyright law.
Printer-friendly version
thanks for sharing a good information.
It is interesting to read the article which is actually over 7 years old. I mean it is a little bit strange because 7 years is not a small period of time. But this problem is more actual today then in 2002.. Software piracy is 10 or 100 times bigger now. You can find almost every software for absolutely free in the internet. If Macromedia products cost 800$, you can find them for 0$ and that's all. The biggest problem is that you can't stop that. It would be too hard to stop piracy in the internet. I think we can't do anything about it. Of course few people are getting fines for that, but only few from a billion. It doesn't solve the problem. Thanks for the great article, I will be looking for other great ones from you. Sincerely, Kevin Tamerson from software application development
GROUPAMA (a large French insurer) was caught in a $200m PIRACY case where it used "bank secrecy" to ask Police not to investigate its computers...
The fun part of the story is that the (Paris) General Prosecuter found no infraction in this (illegal) agreement!
See the whole story on:
http://remoteanything.com/archives/groupama.pdf
Post new comment