Robinson,+Jamie

Software Copyright, Piracy and the Internet

“If you can’t protect what you own—you don’t own anything.” -Motion Picture Association of America

Software has always had an interesting place in the context of copyright. Like all digital material, its licenses are easily copied, making the distribution and protection of those licenses difficult to control. Anyone at any stage in the chain of distribution can make a carbon copy of a piece of software and post it on the internet for anyone to use, even before it’s slated publication date. Copyright in the United States and Canada has been the backbone of enforcing the use of legal licenses throughout individuals and businesses.

Copyright itself is broken down into four main rights. These rights are known as “exclusive statutory rights” and there are four of them. The first is the right to reproduce such copyrighted work. In the case of software, this refers to the actual source code. Because software goes through a process of being compiled (hides the code from the end user) before it’s released, it’s not really the main issue. The primary one we will be discussing is the second one.

That second right is that only the copyright holder may “sell, rent, lease, or otherwise distribute copies of the copyright work to the public”. This right many confuse with the first one when they think of “pirating” software. When dealing with software, the first right refers to the thought process software goes through, where this second right refers to the end product. An individual has infringed on a creator’s second right when they sell or even give a copy of the software to a friend. Only the copyright holder can distribute copies, and more importantly, profit directly from those copies. Before the Internet was used in it’s current broadband state, the primary method for making copies and distributing them illegally was the blank CD. Original CD’s could be copied onto an individual’s hard drive, and then a burned onto a blank CD. Although this is a problem, it still limits the use of the unlicensed software to the near-geographic area of the person who copied it.

An example of this is an Australian Engineering firm who was found guilty of this only a few days ago. On January 19th, the federal court of Australia found Ginos Engineering Pty Limited guilty of infringing on Autodesk Australia’s copyright when they installed unlicensed versions of their software on the majority of the engineering firms computers. The court ruled that the software was “necessary for Ginos to run its business” and that “[Ginos] gain[ed] an ‘entirely undeserved profit’ through the use of unlicensed software.” They were forced to pay AU$76,000 (around CDN$60,000) for these actions.

The real problem with software copyright infringing, also known as pirating software, is the Internet. Now that it is faster than ever to send and receive large volume files, images of CDs can be uploaded to the internet and downloaded by thousands of people a day without anyone turning a blind eye. Although pirating has been going on for some time within the music industry, software pirating that was initially limited by the slow speeds has now taken off. The Internet has created an amazing conduit for illegal software.

Software developers have responded by doing what they do best; developing solutions to their problems. First there was CD-Checks and CD-Keys, then there was Internet Activation, and now there’s Digital Rights Management for Software.

CD-Keys allow the developer to lock the software’s installation and only unlock it if a user has an appropriate key. These keys were generated for each licensed copy of the software, and printed inside the packaging for the software. This worked great, and caused minimal consumer disruption. The problem began when people shared their keys within small groups of people. When websites were formed with massive databases with these keys, this method of securing licenses was completely overcome. Activation was then created to defeat this problem. This is where the software would communicate with a server to actually validate the key, instead of doing it offline. Finally, Digital Rights Management for software takes the idea of protecting music with encryption that can only be decrypted using authorized software, to software. Data that is saved (like a Word document, or Photoshop file, although neither of these programs use it yet) can now be encrypted by the program using DRM, and can only be opened by another computer that is authenticated with a legal license of the software. A new problem rose up with activate and DRM however. People’s convenience started to be compromised. If a user didn’t have Internet, they couldn’t use the software. Or what if the CD-Key was already compromised before they purchased the software? These problems started to frustrate users, and software developers began facing a problem they still face today. How much licensing security is too much? How far can we go without discouraging our legitimate customers from purchasing and using our software? These are questions that still need to answered today, but there is one, relatively simple opportunity. Free and Open source software is software that developers offer, you guessed it, for free.

Open source is a status that software can attain by copyrighting their thought process but allowing others to infringe upon it as much as they want. It fuels the idea that all software should be free. Why would anyone want software to be free other than to save money? So that we can take the combined knowledge of great software and create better software. Open source advocates praise that if all software was free, we could be much more technologically advanced then we are today. Great minds would have access to great ideas, and we could all work together to make all software “better”. Unfortunately for this great concept, the economy isn’t as open-minded. Without the prospect of financial gain, we might not be where we are today. Most Creators need more motivation that personal satisfaction to spend hours and weeks perfecting their software. Being able to copyright their work when they’re done is the only partly their answer. Unfortunately, personal satisfaction from making great software doesn’t pay the bills. That’s why copyright is generally thought to be about money and being compensated for your hard work. It is also about making sure someone else isn’t being compensated for your work.

The tough balance between all these factors has been troubling software creators for years now, and some developers have just simply ignored it all. Apple Computer doesn’t use any of the above on its OS, and the majority of its software. The new iWork for 2009 recently had it’s CD-Key technology removed, and only the high end products where it’s customers won’t be swayed away from tough security measures still have them. Since they have been able to simply copyright their software, and they don’t mind who uses it. Continual illegal use of their software only promotes the software to others, and that’s good enough for them. Anybody who truly “steals” the software from them can only be another developer looking to create a similar product and profit from it, making them easy to find.

All in all, the current US and Canadian Copyright Acts are in place so that people are motivated to create as there work will be protected. Even if it’s stolen, the laws are there so developers can choose to fight back or they can choose to market promote their products themselves with minor illegal distribution. The internet has allowed piracy to expand exponentially, but copyright allows developers to maintain confidence in releasing their products to the world knowing they still have the rights to it.

1. "Autodesk Australia wins software copyright infringement case." CRN Australia. 03 Feb. 2009 . 2. "Currency Calculator." Exchange Rates. 03 Feb. 2009 . 3. "On-line Copyright Infringement Liability for Internet Service Providers." Boston College. 03 Feb. 2009 .

Your gonna like this page when it's done trust me.