by Bruce Tyson

Created on: January 02, 2010   Last Updated: January 27, 2010

Software piracy feels right because it's easy, convenient and free. Still, software piracy is illegal, and people should not do it for their own well being; but is software piracy wrong?

Overview of Piracy

Piracy is making an unlicensed copy of software. This usually includes defeating copy protection and license activation schemes. Software counterfeiting is when copies of software are sold by a third party: the intellectual property of one entity is sold by another who profits from it. Piracy, for the purposes of this article, is different from counterfeiting in that another party does not profit from the sale of another’s property.

While the United States has a piracy rate of just 20%, some places, like Zimbabwe for example, have piracy rates over 90%. This means that almost all the software used inside that country has not been properly licensed by the publisher. Judging from recent data (see http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-cr ime-software-piracy-rate), it’s clear that piracy rates are above 50% in most countries.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is the entity that calculates the amount of pirated software in the world. To do this, the BSA estimates what it thinks software demand should be in a given country. Next, the BSA totals the actual software sales in that country. Finally, the difference between the two numbers is computed and represented as the “cost” of software “piracy.” Of course there is no way to know what software demand in any country should be, so the reality is that the industry (BSA) numbers are completely speculative. Furthermore, the numbers from BSA do not differentiate between counterfeiting and private individuals making unlicensed copies for their own use.

 The wrongness of piracy

Quite simply, software piracy is wrong because it denies a developer the rightful reward for creating a product. Even if a person is not selling unlicensed copies, the fact that she makes a copy of a software program denies revenue to the producer of that software essentially constitutes theft.

Philosophical indications

Suppose a woman who needs a software program for her livelihood but cannot afford to purchase a license for it makes an unlicensed copy of the program. A utilitarian might argue that more good is created by her action than the harm it causes the publisher. After all, if she was unable to purchase it, the publisher would not have any revenue regardless of whether she copied it

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