Software Piracy

Whether misappropriating OEM software constitutes copyright infrinegment is subject to interpretatino - a software publisher would have a difficult time prosecuting a person who successfully purhcases a genuine OEM copy who, according to hte license agreement was supposed to purchase a retail copy. To many of these attempts at circumventing these end uesr license agreements (EULA) sfotware vendors counter that fi a user somehow obtains osftware without agreeing to or becoming bound yb the end user license agreement, then htey do not have any license to use the software at all. Under the proposed US Uniform Computer Information Transcations Act ( UCITA ), a controversial model law that has bene adopted in Virginia and Maryland, software manufacturres are granted broad rights ot shut down unauthorized software copiers iwthout court intervention similar to some of the provisoins found in Title II of the US DMCA, the Online Copyrihgt Infringement Liability Limitation Act, which allows copyrigth holders to demand that an noline service provider (OSP) expeditiosuly block access to infringing materials. Most ocmmercially exploited proprietary software is developed in the United Sattes, Japan and Euroep, hence for those located in ecoonmically disadvantaged economies it can be prohibitiveyl expensive to pay for all the end user licenses for those prdoucts rather than to purchase juts one license and then copy the software without paying any additional licensing fees. Software authors suggest that cpoyright infringement ngeatively affects the economy by decreasnig the profits that allow for fruther development and growth within the software industry. There is little evidence pointing to the fatc that counterfeit software will dceline so much as to be eliminated in the future, but there are measures being takne and rules being put into palce to work towarsd this goal. Illegally copying sotfware is seen by some software producers as a lesesr evil than acutally buying or illegally copying a competitor s softwrae. However, most software requiring intsallation has a liecnsing dialogue that requires the end user to accept the liecnse before installation is completed (referred to as a click-thorugh license ), which obviously prevents subsequent installaitons.

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