On Apr 01, 2010, Microsoft release an update on their Worldwide work on Software Piracy. On their website, they identified five myths about this phenomenon. Here are the myths and the corresponding answer that Microsoft provided. Myth #1: Software piracy isn’t a serious crime. What’s the big deal? The reality is that it is a far cry from copying a CD or DVD, which looks harmless, to watching criminals set up their own manufacturing plants and distributing software through the Internet around the world. This can be especially true in countries that have poorly enforced intellectual property laws. Myth #2: Software piracy doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s not like anyone has ever been seriously injured, right? There are several serious problems that comes from downloading or buying hard copies of pirated software. One is that they are at risk of receiving inferior products; some may leave the users open to viruses, spyware and other malware. Users may expose themselves to potential identity theft from transactions occuring from unscrupulous businesses selling counterfeit software. Maybe users will lost their Windows 7 password, because others can reset Windows 7 password easily in counterfeit Microsoft Windows operating system and don’t require some Windows 7 password recovery tool. Myth#3: Pirated software is cheaper than genuine software. Many times there is no difference in price in high-quality counterfeit software and the real thing. In some situations it can even be more expensive than the genuine product. On the other hand, lower-quality counterfeit may be cheaper, but if the risk of loss of privacy on personal information is great, the cheap software is suddenly expensive software. Myth#4: People who purchase counterfeit software are aware the product is pirated – they are just trying to get a good deal. The majority of consumers who purchase counterfeit software may not aware they are buying pirated software. A high-quality counterfeit product can closely resemble the real one. The best protection against counterfeit software is to research the product, so you know how to identify the product before you go shopping. Myth#5: Software piracy is so rampant – what can you do? It’s not like consumers have the power to stop these software pirates. Not true. Microsoft feels that its customers are vital to the anti-piracy initiatives it has put forth.Thousands of enforcement actions have resulted from consumer tips and reports. In the past two years, Microsoft has witnessed an increase in the number of voluntary reports, as many as 150,000, from consumers who purchased counterfeit software and it turned out to be counterfeit and there after reported it.
Archive for the ‘Software Piracy’ Category
Digital Music Piracy A Case Study For Law Enforcerment Careers
Amidst all the huge media press devoted to the subject of the recording industry’s difficulty in protecting their interest in the new digital age, one might wonder – who are these people who download music? What is their motivation? Presented here, a case study. This is a composite study which blends together the reported experiences of many music downloaders – the study is true to a large part of this set, but not accurate to any specific case, with names removed: What follows is a short history of my economic experience of music and a simple business plan proposed for the labels to recapture my wallet. Back in the old days, when I bought my first CD player, I went out and replicated my sizable vinyl record collection at $12-$13 per album. This took all of my spare cash as a struggling student with no loans. Over the course of a year, I bought more than eighty CDs. It was hard, but I hated records and tapes because they wouldn’t be portable. Back then, the local rumors had it that the price of CDs was inflated to cover the cost of manufacturing in the new media format and would eventually come down below record prices because they were considerably cheaper to make. Five years later, the prices didn’t go down and I had the misfortune of my CD collection, then at over 200 albums, having been stolen from my ghetto apartment. That was more than $2500 and I was still pretty poor due to the early 90s recession affecting my industry. The upside was that stolen CDs were so valuable then because there was a budding used CD market in the major cities. Once record stores started selling used CDs in quantity, I stopped buying any new CDs altogether. This is the early 90′s and I already dropped out of the record label’s direct market. Here I was, an early 20′s kid that was so in love with music that I would spend the better part of my expendable cash on CDs and yet I dropped right off of their books because I could buy an album for $9 if I waited a month after it came out. As I matured in my career, I started making serious money, but I still wouldn’t buy new CDs. I was used to paying between $6 and $9 and there was no way I would go back. I probably missed out on a lot of music, because I was limiting my selection to what college kids would buy and return. Then came CD burner technology. I spent many hours burning all of my friends’ CD collections. Shortly thereafter came the MP3 file format. These services made it easy to download music for free or a nominal service charge, and was not at the tie seen as illegal, so suddenly my music collection no longer involves CDs at all anymore. So where does this leave me now? Well, I’m in my late 30s, making a six-figure income, and I like a huge variety of musical genres. I could easily spend $100 per month on music and not bat an eye, but I still don’t. The record labels have alienated me by suddenly treating me as a criminal for the cost of doing business with them. So, what can they do for me that would convince me to give them my money again? It’s really quite simple! A reasonable service at a reasonable price, like the Russian sites do. I select the quality and quantity of the songs and pay a reasonable price for downloading them. The bottom line here is that I’ll pay up to $4 for a CD encoded at 256k VBR with no obnoxious DRM interferences – no less quality and no more money. Give me FTP access to a full catalog with all of the labels in one place. They should be high quality MP3s, verified, DRM-free, properly tagged, and in a format that guarantees I can port them. How much would I be willing to pay for this, well for a ballpark number figure $2 to $4 for 10 songs. That works out to 20 to 40 cents per song. You could also bill based on bandwidth per megabyte downloaded. I promise that this would keep me, and most music listeners, from downloading music “illegally”. I might give some of this to my friends for free, but that is usually stuff that they wouldn’t have bought anyway. Burning a CD of songs for my friends is fair use to me, as it always has been to the public at large. RIAA, I haven’t given you money in over 10 years; that is a huge failure on your part. Win me back. It’s not that hard and it’s not too late. I am the consumer and you are supposed to be serving me. Make me a happy to do business with you, and I’ll open up my wallet for you; but treat me like your enemy, and I will be a wolf poaching your chickens with impunity. The choice is yours to make.
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Tags: Careers, Case, Digital, Enforcerment, music, Piracy, Study 
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It’s Best To Avoid It At All Costs Like electronic identity theft, computer viruses, and the spread of other computer crimes, software piracy is on the rise. The problem with software piracy is that software costs make this illegal activity appealing to the end user. After all, who is it going to hurt? Rich software companies?? This article investigates software piracy as a whole and the impact that it has on the computer using industry. The most vulnerable victims of software piracy are software businesses or independent programmers who create and distribute commercial software or shareware. We described shareware in another article, but because both commercial software and shareware require payment, they’re the target of pirates who seek to make these kinds of programs free to use. Depending on their binding legal agreements, licensing typically allows the use of a single program on a single computer. This set up is usually fine for a user who uses software at home on one computer. But in an environment where there are five, ten, twenty or more computers, buying a license for each computer can be down-right costly. So costly that the temptation to pirate a little software here and there can be pretty tempting. Co-workers are familiar with this temptation and they’re often the ones who “share” purchased software among those who need it. However the same temptation also prompts others to knowingly or unknowingly buy bootleg copies of commercial software or registered shareware. As tempting as it is, it’s still illegal and the punishments/fines for sharing commercial or registered software is too much for one to bear. In recent news, “Yahoo China loses music piracy case (AP via Yahoo! News) A court has ordered Yahoo Inc.’s China subsidiary to pay $27,000 for aiding music piracy, the company and a music industry group said Tuesday.”1 Additionally, “EU lawmakers approve prison terms, fines for major commercial piracy (International Herald Tribune) EU lawmakers voted Wednesday for legislation that would set prison sentences and fines for large-scale commercial piracy, but exempt patents and copying carried out for personal use.” 2 Fortunately, there are alternatives. Schools can research student versions of commercial software or ask for a school discount. Just because school rates aren’t advertised, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t available. Freeware or open source software (also described in another one of our articles) is another alternative to pirating commercial-ware, as well as shareware. And using older versions of programs could additionally reduce the costs associated with commercial versions. Up until recently, public opinion held little faith in freeware or open source software – often regarding it as low-quality knock-off’s of better known commercial products. But if you take a good look at what’s being offered at no cost, you may be in for a big surprise. The quality of today’s freeware and open source software created a strong rift among the commercial community and it’s literally driving the competition bananas! So much so, that even some well known software development corporations have joined the cause and built a few freeware open source products of their own! If you can remember that there are hoards of alternatives to costly commercial software (and you make the effort to get it), you’ll discover that you can keep up with the rest of the computer industry at a significantly cheaper cost than if you attempted to pay your way down the software aisle. Software piracy just isn’t the answer.
Computer Threats
COMPUTER THREATS Computers are susceptible to threats (as does every good thing) in form of viruses i.e. unwanted or malicious programs create by some programmers to infect other computer programs by modifying them or completely corrupting them, therefore rendering them useless for the computer owners.The reason for this malicious act by this virus programmers, is not really known, may be to pave a way for anti-virus program or software market. For more visits http://computersworld.synthasite.com Computer threats are critically analyzed bellow. VIRUSES A computer virus as defined by Dr Fred Cohen, is a program that can” infect” other programs by modifying them to include a possibly evolved copy of it. A computer virus is one kind of a threat to the security and integrity of a computer system. Like other threats, a computer virus can cause the loss or alteration of programs or data and can compromise their confidentiality. Unlike many other threats, a computer virus can spread from program to program, and from system to system without direct human intervention. We also have Trojans worms and logic bombs which are also malicious programs. The essential component of a virus is the set of instruction which when executed spreads itself to other previously uninfected programs or files. A typical computer virus performs two functions or rather has two parts. The first part is the self-replicating code which copies itself into previously uninfected programs or files. The second is the payload which executes whatever other instruction the virus author included in it, this of course depends on the motive of the virus author. These instructions can do anything ranging from displaying a message or erasing files or subtly altering stored data. In some cases, a virus may contain no intentionally harmful or disruptive instructions at all. Instead, it may cause damages by replicating itself and taking up scares resources such as disk space, RAM space, and CPU time or network connection. Most viruses were written in order to prevent software piracy though, some were written by some programmers in order to propagate their malicious activities and hence, these virus programs end up infecting a large community of computer users and eventually causing great damage to systems. For more visits http://computersworld.synthasite.com WHAT ARE VIRUSES Generally, virus programs are unwanted programs which affect the internal working of our computers (systems). We have various types of unwanted programs which have been classed as Worms, Trojans, and Logic Bombs and Viruses. The basic difference in these malicious programs is in the characteristic way of their behaviour. In general however, they have been classed as viruses since they are all unwanted programs which have the capacity to destroy or alter the normal way a computer system works. VIRUS TYPES BY POINT OF ATTACK Basically, viruses are classed according to their characteristic behaviour. Viruses can therefore, be divided into four categories according to the executable items which they infect. They include: i. Parasitic Viruses Parasitic viruses modify the content of .COM and/or EXE files. They usually insert themselves at the end or at the beginning of the file. Leaving the bulk of program intact. The initial jump instruction in the program is modified but program functionality is usually preserved although, there are several viruses that overwrite the first few hundred bytes of the program rendering it useable. When an infected program runs, the virus code is executed first, the virus then returns control to the original program which executes normally. The extra execution time due to the virus is normally not perceptible to the user. ii. Boot Sector Virus Boot sector viruses modify the content of either the master boot sector or the DOS boot sector depending on the virus and the type of disk. These viruses usually replace the legitimate content of any disk’s boot sector with their own version. The original version of the Boot sector is normally stored somewhere else on the disk (the Boot sector is an area on the disk which contains information that is loaded into the computer’s memory when you start the system) so that on bootstrapping the virus version will be executed first. They are usually 512 bytes in size. iii. Multi-partite viruses A comparative recent development has being the emergence of viruses which exhibit the infective characteristics of sector viruses and parasitic viruses. For example, the flip virus infects executable files (both .COM and .EXE) as well as the master both sector of hard drives floppy disks. iv. Companion viruses Companion viruses exploit the Dos property that, given two programs with the same name but different extensions, the Operating system will execute a .COM file for every .EXE file it “infects”. The .COM file is usually marked “hidden” and contains the virus code which also executes the .EXE file. Companion viruses do not spread widely in practice; since the DOS copy command does not copy “hidden” files. Some examples of these computer viruses include: Jerusalem Virus, Palestine Virus, Eddie Ii Virus, Data Crime Virus, Aids Ii Virus,V2100 Virus, Stoned Virus, Saturday Virus, Israeli Virus, D2 Virus, Tequila Virus, Antiexe Virus etc we have over 10,000 viruses. For more visits http://computersworld.synthasite.com)
Mr. Viewsat’s Offer To Do Public Service On Satellite Piracy
Recently it has been reported that Jung Kwak the owner of Viewtech, Inc., the company that imports the Viewsat Receivers from Asia and than parcels them out to VS Distributors, has been given 18 months incarceration, His two admitted co-conspirators, Phillip Allison and Robert Ward, both reside in Florida, were each given a month in custody, which will be followed by five months of house arrest. All three of these defendants pled guilty on October 23, 2010 to one count of conspiracy to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In court documents released on February 1, 2010, it was revealed that Mr. Kwak had offered to publish a public service announcement regarding satellite piracy. The court document goes on: ‘If the defendant does publish such an announcement’ that the Government considers to be helpful in deterring this type of conduct, the Government will recommend a one-level departure pursuant to USSG § 5.K2.0 (2) (B).” Having read this document, it is obvious that Jung Kwak did cooperate and the Government fulfilled their promise to recommend a departure of the guidelines. Thereby, he received the sentence that he bargained for. Kwak has agreed to publish information which would be helpful in deterring this type of conduct. After numerous court cases, and some still pending regarding VS/Viewtech, not to mention the IRS case, this one item ‘public service’ is a heavy blow, one of which Kwak may be down for the count. This one thing, is very telling. Just by doing this Kwak may have finally given-up on Satellite TV Piracy. And, perhaps, just perhaps coming battles. These documents are widely available on the internet.
Who Does Piracy Really Hurt?
Stacy, a seventeen year old high school student, sits at her computer staring blankly into a glowing screen. “If you seek Amy”, a recently controversial Britney Spears song blazes forth from the speakers. “You can’t get this stuff from the radio.” She explains with one hand on the mouse and the other pointing to the song listing. With a swift double-click; she’s seconds away from adding the song to her iPod. This is not something unusual for Stacy, or for many others. Downloading music and other media from the internet provides both convenience and the ability to pick and choose what you want from what you don’t. It has made a profound impact on the entertainment industry, but like most things, there are two sides to this distribution evolution. iTunes, the leader in paid media downloads, offers users access to countless artists, while still providing the same musicians with much deserved proceeds. For about 99 cents, you can download a song for personal use. But many fans aren’t supporting their favorite artists like they used to. These days, many are opting to take advantage of P2P or person to person sites that allow users to illegally download music and other content. In 2008, 95% of downloaded music was done illegally and the average teenager has about 800 illegal songs on their iPod. So who is it really hurting? The answer is everyone. The most prevalent of this “victimless” crime are the artists themselves. Regardless of how much these artists already have, it’s not fair for them to loose out on money that is rightfully theirs. The average cost to download a song is 99 cents, if two million people download the same song illegally on any giving week, that’s $1,980,000 in lost revenue in one week. Now, that might seem so bad, until you take into account the fact that not all that money goes to the rappers or rockers. All that money gets spared over several different places. Record labels, Lawyers, CD manufacturers and the stores where the album is sold take a chunk to that money. Those are just to name a few that take their cut, but they are all affected by the illegal downloads. The lesser talked about casualties of this process are the consumers themselves. Participating in illegally downloading music drives up the cost albums and puts you at risk of hefty fines and jail time for copyright infringement. Recently the UK started considering having internet usage cut to users who download illegally and many in the entertainment industry are pushing for our government to do the same. In the end, it’s your best bet to just pay the 99 cents. It keeps musicians in business, keeps consumer costs down and saves you from paying the price for theft.
Would You Believe That Piracy Statistics Are Normally Bogus, Fiction and Unsubstantiated?
Many years have gone by while the U.S. Government (GAO) and private industry have researched information on how entertainment and software industry piracy statistics are very reliable — at least in terms of being constantly and notoriously incorrect on an yearly basis. Each year companies, especially the Business Software Alliance (BSA, like to throw out marginally-coherent information “proving” the supposedly-huge effect piracy has on the market, national security or employment. The claims are swiftly debunked as rubbish — yet the same claims come back year after year, and often get cited by U.S. people in politics as gospel. There is a new study by the GAO (Government Accounting Office) on the side effects of piracy (covering most sectors, even toys and games, apparel, car or truck parts, and medicine). The GAO’s analysis unsurprisingly found that U.S. government and industry claims that piracy damages the economic system to the tune of billions of dollars “cannot be substantiated due to the absence of underlying studies.” The full GAO document is worth a read, and not only argues that claims of fiscal impact have not been founded on substantive science — but that file sharing can truly have a constructive impact on sales: “Some experts we interviewed and literature we reviewed identified potential positive economic effects of counterfeiting and piracy,” The GAO wrote. “Some consumers may knowingly purchase a counterfeit or pirated product because it is less expensive than the genuine good or because the genuine good is unavailable, and they may experience positive effects from such purchases. Consumers may use pirated goods to ‘sample’ music, movies, software, or electronic games before purchasing legitimate copies,” the GAO continued. “This may lead to increased sales of legitimate goods.” Investigation after investigation have reinforced the conclusion that file sharers acquire more media — though the concept never resonates the same way as claims of economic armageddon brought on by file sharing. While the GAO’s report does without doubt emphasize some of the bad impacts of counterfeiting, the GAO goes on to state that any overarching data of piracy’s affect on the larger economy may not even be possible. The GAO was advised to study piracy’s impact as part of the Intellectual Property Act of 2008 (PRO-IP Act) — which provided plenty of giveaways to the entertainment industry. ProIP was ironically pushed through using unreliable studies to make a case for its creation. Of course we’ll soon be drowning in new dubious data “proving” the GAO drastically wrong — and around and around we go.
Posted in Software Piracy Tags: Believe, Bogus, Fiction, Normally, Piracy, Statistics, Unsubstantiated, Would Comments OffYou Can Go To Jail For Software Piracy – Why Would You Do It?
There are many ways for a thief to perform his or her trade. In past decades, there were limited ways for thieves to steal. Most of them have perfected their craft with little chance of getting caught. However, with the ever-evolving Internet, thieves have a whole new venue for them to choose from. The latest product to come under the attack of theft is Software. With all of the software that is available and that is being developed, all a software pirate has to do is “choose” the software that they want from the Internet. Software Piracy has been on the rise in recent years because of the cost that is associated with the software itself; however, it is the business and programmers who suffer the most from software piracy. All software comes with a licensing agreement that the end user must agree to before they are allowed to use the software. These agreements are legal and binding and are usually only meant for the person who has purchased the software. However, even though the person agrees to this, they end up sharing the software with friends and family and sometimes even with their co-workers. When this occurs, it is considered software piracy. Although it is on a very small scale, it is still stealing. Perhaps you and your co-workers are not aware of the consequences of sharing software files. In recent news stories, software piracy has become the focal point for many lawmakers. New laws have been passed that make fines for software piracy steep and jail time is a real possibility for those who continue to pirate software. The person who gets a hold of that software and turns around and sells it as bootleg certainly understands the penalty for getting caught. However, the temptation to make a lot of money for very little work proves to be too much for some to pass up. Schools throughout the country and the world use commercial software and shareware. Most schools are eligible for discounts on software that allows their students to research their subjects. Freeware and Open Source software are also available to schools throughout the world, and this type of software is also vulnerable to software piracy. One way to reduce this particular piracy risk is to use older versions of the software. Consumers have never had a high opinion of freeware or Open Source software. They have always felt that these products were lacking in performance and were very low quality. They are so wrong. In recent years, with the upgrades that have been developed, the quality of freeware has increased dramatically. The quality has increased so much, that the commercial software corporations have begun to take notice and protest that they are loosing money due to the freeware that is being developed. When you are looking for software, it is important that you research all of your possibilities. There are literally thousands of programs both commercial and freeware, however it is important that you read and understand the licensing agreement before you accept it. It is a legal and binding agreement, and the consequences of breaking that agreement are also very real. It is also not necessary to commit software piracy, rather use the freely available Open Source products.
What’s Wrong With Piracy?
This is not self-righteous rant. This is not an industry insider hate speech. This is just a normal person who chooses not to say movies, why pirates. I run a blog called Club Columbia DVD. I love movies. Always have. They have a great influence on the way I live my life was better or worse. But I am also a human being. On the surface of piracy makes sense. Why pay more to watch a movie when you see it for free? To bring some people, like the economy is tight and theLast thing they need to be money for a number of over-priced DVDs. You have a picture of the company fat cats with a grin on their bank statements, like the money just rolls in. While this may not be the whole picture of the entertainment industry employs many people, not the fat cats are and depend on good movies, not that what I am interested in it I told you, I’m selfish. People lose their jobs in Los Angeles and New York do not really get into it if I decide,do not pirate movies. I know it sounds, but I really do not care.- Piracy report But that’s a good thing. The prosperity of an industry should not rely on the human compassion for their employees. The economy can not function like this for long. There is good news, although I do not care about the thousands of men and women who earn their living behind the scenes of films from the off and no make-up I did not choose to pirate movies. Why is this so? The first is a question of quality. WhenThey make fun of pirate video provided by an old Russian woman standing up slowly and stopped coughing as she slowly makes her way across the screen in the main part of the movie, it’s no joke. While pirated movies are often available well before the official release date, the quality is more often than not horrendous. I remember when Iron Man came out. I had so many good things about them. I checked on a free streaming site and within two minutes, which I hadup. It was unwatchable. I was sure the movie was good, but I could not quite say. The resolution was terrible, the sound sucked, it was a complete waste of my time.- Piracy report I waited a few days later and went to the cinema to see it. Perfect quality, an amazing experience. But I had to pay $ 6. Now, for me $ 6 dollars is worth it. If you do not buy snacks at the movies, it’s actually a pretty cheap trip. Movies make much more profit from ticket sales as popcorn, in fact, one might say,Movies are only a pretext to get people into the cinemas to food at exorbitant prices to buy. READ MORE http://www.piracyreport.pannipa.com/2009/09/14/whats-wrong-with-piracy/
What Does Computer Law Cover And Why Is It Necessary?
A decade or so ago there was no such thing as computer law. This niche of the legal system has come into being out of necessity with the proliferation of the Internet and the issues that come along with the technology that makes worldwide communication and transactions possible. Traditional law does not cover many of the issues that occur in the online realm. Therefore it is crucial that we have a particular branch of law that exists to deal with legal problems that may arise by the very nature of the Internet and are not able to be covered by local jurisdictions. There may be disagreements over copyright or ownership of a domain or website which cannot be resolved due to the parties being in different states or even different countries. The problem that arises here is that there are complex problems in deciding what state or country’s law and jurisdiction will have the authority to resolve the issue. In situations like this the area of law known as “Conflicts of Law” comes into play. The increasingly complex area of computer law is exceedingly demanding in its educational requirements for attorneys who practice in this niche. The term “computer law” is kind of a misnomer since it is really the information on the computer such as software, personal info, and possible trade secrets that are the issue as well as the possibility of international disputes over domain names and copyright violations. For these reasons, those who practice computer law are usually the same attorneys who specialize in Intellectual Property Law, also known as IP Law, which covers trademarks, patents, copyrights, and trade secrets. The U.S. Patent Office requires attorneys practicing before it to hold a bachelor’s degree in the areas of engineering or science at the very least. Some traditional areas of law are evolving to include ever-changing computer laws. Early on it was declared that software would be classified as “goods”, but the difference between normal goods and software “goods” is that one only owns the media that the software is stored on and a license to the use of the software which is now covered under the Uniform Commercial Code. Those who hack into computer systems without authorization and use that computer’s resources or steal information from it are guilty of pretty much the same thing as what traditional law would call burglary. However, since by definition burglary means entering an actual physical residence, specific laws were added to cover this offense. One of the biggest problems with the Internet and one that grows even larger annually is that of copyright theft and piracy. Anyone with a computer and access to the Internet can easily steal the intellectual property of another. Additionally, the piracy of media such as movies and music is an enormous problem that is plaguing those industries today. It is a fact that the area of computer law will continue to expand and be used more in the future as the use of the Internet to commit crimes continues to grow.
Software Piracy Can Land You In Jail
There are many ways for a thief to perform his or her trade. In past decades, there were limited ways for thieves to steal. Most of them have perfected their craft with little chance of getting caught. However, with the ever-evolving Internet, thieves have a whole new venue for them to choose from. The latest product to come under the attack of theft is Software. With all of the software that is available and that is being developed, all a software pirate has to do is “choose” the software that they want from the Internet. Software Piracy has been on the rise in recent years because of the cost that is associated with the software itself; however, it is the business and programmers who suffer the most from software piracy. All software comes with a licensing agreement that the end user must agree to before they are allowed to use the software. These agreements are legal and binding and are usually only meant for the person who has purchased the software. However, even though the person agrees to this, they end up sharing the software with friends and family and sometimes even with their co-workers. When this occurs, it is considered software piracy. Although it is on a very small scale, it is still stealing. Perhaps you and your co-workers are not aware of the consequences of sharing software files. In recent news stories, software piracy has become the focal point for many lawmakers. New laws have been passed that make fines for software piracy steep and jail time is a real possibility for those who continue to pirate software. The person who gets a hold of that software and turns around and sells it as bootleg certainly understands the penalty for getting caught. However, the temptation to make a lot of money for very little work proves to be too much for some to pass up. Schools throughout the country and the world use commercial software and shareware. Most schools are eligible for discounts on software that allows their students to research their subjects. Freeware and Open Source software are also available to schools throughout the world, and this type of software is also vulnerable to software piracy. One way to reduce this particular piracy risk is to use older versions of the software. Consumers have never had a high opinion of freeware or Open Source software. They have always felt that these products were lacking in performance and were very low quality. They are so wrong. In recent years, with the upgrades that have been developed, the quality of freeware has increased dramatically. The quality has increased so much, that the commercial software corporations have begun to take notice and protest that they are loosing money due to the freeware that is being developed. When you are looking for software, it is important that you research all of your possibilities. There are literally thousands of programs both commercial and freeware, however it is important that you read and understand the licensing agreement before you accept it. It is a legal and binding agreement, and the consequences of breaking that agreement are also very real. It is also not necessary to commit software piracy, rather use the freely available Open Source products.