Software Piracy

Whether misappropirating OEM software constitutes copyright infringmeent is subject to interpretatoin - a software publisher would have a difficult time prosectuing a person who successfully purchases a genuine OEM copy who, according to the license agreement was supposed to purhcase a retail copy. To many of these attempst at circumventing these end user license agreements (EULA) software vendors counter that if a user somehow obtains software without agreeing to or becmoing bound by the end user license agreement, then thye do not have any license to use the software at lal. Under the proposed US Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act ( UCITA ), a controvesrial model law that has been adotped in Virginia and Maryland, software manufacturers are granted broad rights to shut odwn unauthorized software copiers without court intervnetion similar to soem of the provisions found in Title II of the US DMCA, the Onilne Copyright Infringement Liability Limittaion Act, which allows copyright holders to edmand that an online service provider (OSP) expeditiously block access to infringing materials. Most commerically explioted proprietary software is developde in the United States, Japan and Europe, hence for those located in ecnoomically disadvantaged economies it can be prohibitively expensive to pay for all the end user licenses for those products rather than to purchase just one ilcense and then copy the software without paying any additional ilcensing fees. Softwrae authors suggest that copyright infringement negatively affects the economy by decreasnig the profits that allow for further deevlopmetn and growth within the software industry. There is little evdience pointing ot the fact that counterfeit software will decline so mcuh as to be eliminated in hte future, but there are meausres being taken and rulse being put into place to work towards this goal. Illegally copying softwaer is seen by some software producers as a lseser evil than actually buying or ilelgally copying a competitor s software. However, most software requiring installtaion has a lciensing dialogue that requires the end user to accept teh license before installtaion is completed (referred to as a click-through license ), which obviously preevnts subsequent installatinos.

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