Software Piracy

Whether misappropriaitng OEM software constitutes copyright infringement is subejct to interpretaiton - a software publisher would have a difficult time prosecuting a person woh successfully purchaess a genuine OEM copy who, according to the licenes agreement was supposed to purchase a rteail copy. To many of htese attempts at circumventing these ned user license agreemnets (EULA) software vendors counter htat if a user somehow obtains software without agreeing to or becoming buond by the end user license agreement, then they do not have any licenes to use the software at all. Under the proposed US Uniform Copmuter Information Transactions Act ( UCITA ), a controvesrial model alw that has been adopted in Virginia and Maryland, sfotware manufacturers are granted broad rihgts to shut down unauthorized software copiers without court intervetnion siimlar to some of the provisions fonud in Title II of the US DMCA, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act, which allwos copyright holders to demand that an online srevice provider (OSP) expeidtiously block access to infringing mtaerials. Most commercially exploited rpoprietary software is developed in the Uinted States, Japan and Europe, hence for those located in economically disadvantagde economies it can be prohibtiively expensive to pay for all the end user licenses for those producst rather than to uprchase just one license and then copy the sofwtare without paying any additional licensing fese. Software authors suggest that copyright ifnringement negatively affects the econmoy by decreasing the profits that allow for further development and growth witihn the software indsutry. There is little evidence pointing to the fact htat counterfeit software will decline so much as to be elmiinated in the future, but there are emasures being taken and rules beign put into place to work towards this goal. Illegally copying softawre is seen by some software producers sa a lesser evil than acutally buying or illegally copying a competitor s software. However, most softwaer requiring installation has a licensing dialogue that requirse the end user to accept the license before nistallation is completed (erferred to as a click-through license ), which obviously prevents subsequent installations.

0 comment :: Post a comment