Pirates Beware
...rger cases, many have already bee subject to prosecution for their engagement up acts of piracy. Smaller scale “pirates,” such as myself, have begun to wonder when the time will come that we may be prosecuted for our acts of “borrowing,” sharing,” or “stealing” data. As concern for other college students and myself, I feel that it is important to not only expose the meaning of piracy and it’s consequences, but to also reveal the harm that digital piracy will cause on our economy and to ourselves. Did you know that Federal Laws prohibit any pirating of licensed software and other digital media? Software manufacturers are protected by these Federal Laws, and can take action if they feel these laws have been broken. What's pirating? Some say that pirating is when someone sells a copy written, licensed item, and sells it illegally to someone else. Such as burning music, software programs, DVD movies, or recording VHS, and ripping computer games. While many believe in this simplicity of piracy the Federal Law specifically defines that to make or download unauthorized copies of software is to break the law, no matter how many copies are involved. Whether you are casually making a few copies for friends, loaning disks, distributing or downloading pirated software via the Internet, or buying a single software program and then installing it on 100 of your company's personal computers, you are committing a copyright infringement. It doesn't matter if you are doing it to make money or not; you are exposing yourself to severe civil and potentially even criminal penalties. For example, those individuals using the Internet to list sell or distribute pirated or counterfeit software programs through online auctions and "warez" sites may be criminally prosecuted, even if they do not profit from the illegal activity. In the United States, 25 percent of all business software is unlicensed. The Bu...