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The copyright infringement of software is often called software piracy by those seeking to reduce its incidence. There are several practices which when done without the permission of the copyright holder may be called software piracy:- Creating a copy and selling it. This is the act most people refer to as software piracy. This is copyright infringement in most countries and is unlikely to be fair use or fair dealing if the work remains commercially available. In some countries the laws may allow the selling of a version modified for use by blind people, students (for non-educational product) or similar. Differences in legislation may also make the copyright invalid in some jurisdictions, but not the others.
- Creating a copy and giving it to someone else. Copyright infringement in most jurisdictions. Not infringing under specific circumstances such as fair use and fair dealing.
- Creating a copy to serve as a backup. Seen as a fundamental right of the software-buyer in some countries, e.g., Germany. It can be infringement, depending on the laws and the case law interpretations of those laws, currently undergoing changes in many countries. In the US, legal action was taken against companies which made backup copies while repairing computers (see MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc. (1993)) and as a result, US law was changed to make it clear that this is not copyright infringement.
- Renting the original software. Software licenses often try to restrict the usual right of a purchaser of a copyrighted work to let others borrow the work.
- Reselling the original software. Licenses often say that the buyer does not buy the software but instead pays for the right to use the software. In the US, the first-sale doctrine, Softman v. Adobe [1] and Novell, Inc. v. CPU Distrib., Inc. ruled that software sales are purchases, not licenses, and resale, including unbundling, is lawful regardless of a contractual prohibition. The reasoning in Softman v. Adobe suggests that prohibiting resale of student licensed versions, provided they are accurately described as such, is also not infringing.
Copyright infringement of software is extremely common in China, Russia, Brazil, and several other parts of the world.
1 The term "software piracy"
The term "software piracy" is more correctly described as copyright infringement: Some object that copyright holders' use of the term "piracy" is a dysphemism, making the unauthorized reselling of copyrighted works morally equivalent to the violent actions of pirates — robbers on the high seas, who often murder and rape their victims. Another complication of the pirate analogy is that pirates actually deprive their victims of their property, whereas software pirates only deprive proprietary softwareProprietary software is any closed-source material which fundamentally means that the user does not control what it does or cannot study or edit the code. The Free Software Foundation defines it as any software that is not free software or is only partial companies of potential revenue, which may not actually exist because of market elasticity. For example, if one hundred copies of a product are sold, and five hundred copied illegally, it does not necessarily follow that five hundred extra copies would have been sold at the full price if unauthorized copying became impossible. Sometimes the unauthorized copies may in fact encourage the marketing of the software and allowing some unauthorized copying may create an interest and encourage corporate and institutional users to purchase site licenses for their students or employees who may recommend purchase of these licenses after their trial of the pirated software.
The use of "piracy" to refer to copyright infringement has historical basis; it is the second meaning of the term given by the Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary (OED is a comprehensive multi-volume dictionary published by the Oxford University Press. Generally regarded as the definitive dictionary of Modern English, it defines around 500,000 headwords and includes some 2. 5 million i and the first documented use is from the 18th century17th century 18th century 19th century more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 18th century refers to the century that lasted from 1701- 1800; however, historians will sometimes specifically refer to the 18th Century as 1715- 89,:
- 1771Events January 22 Spain cedes the Falkland Islands to England. July 17 Massacre at Bloody Falls: Chipewyan chief Matonabbee traveling as the guide to Samuel Hearne on his arctic overland journey, massacre a group of unsuspecting Inuit. September 8 In Cali LUCKOMBE Hist. Print. 76 They..would suffer by this act of piracy, since it was likely to prove a very bad edition.
- 1808Events January 1 Importation of slaves into the United States is banned February 11 Anthracite coal first burned as fuel, experimentally. February Russia issues an ultimatum to Sweden, to join France, Denmark and Russia and attacks Finland. March 26 Charl Med. Jrnl. XIX. 520 He is charged with "Literary Piracy", and an "unprincipled suppression of the source from whence he drew his information".
- 1855Events Births January 5 King Camp Gillette, inventor († 1932) January 21 John Moses Browning, inventor († 1926) January 28 William Seward Burroughs, inventor of the calculator († 1898) March 13 Percival Lowell, astronomer († 19 BREWSTER Newton I. iv. 71 With the view of securing his invention of the telescope from foreign piracy.
