The illegal act of software piracy can occur in many different forms which all violate the copyright law. These forms include anything to sharing a twenty-dollar program with a friend to making and selling counterfeit software. The first and most common way software is pirated is through bootlegging. Bootlegging is like when you make a friend a copy of a software title or let them install it on their computer, which is illegal. (Adobe Systems Incorporated) Occurring frequently in business and offices is a form of software piracy called softloading. Investigation has found that one in four business programs in the U.S. are pirated. (Creed) Softloading is when business or individuals buy one license copy of a software title and install it on many computers or a server, which many users can access it. (Adobe Systems Incorporated) Thirdly, resellers commit software piracy if they break up bundled software for individual sales. Fourthly, some computer resellers preload their computers before they sale them with unauthorized copies of softwar

As the software piracy crimes decrease we will all benefit greatly. With the help Business Software Alliance investigating software piracy crimes, educating business and individuals about software piracy and the tough penalties for committing it they may have a good chance beating this act of crime.

In addition to the tough legal punishments, they are other disadvantages to software piracy. First of all a pirated copy of software may contain viruses that could completely destroy all your data, corrupted media or data, or entirely malfunctioning software. Also with pirated software you do not receive technical support like a register user receives and proper user manuals. The latest upgrades for the software are not available to pirated software users. The software publishers have to increase the prices of their software to make up the losses from software piracy. The money being spent on pirated software is going right to the pirator therefore the software developer does not get a cent and no money is put towards research and development of new technology and products. Because of this, many jobs are being lost and the economy suffers greatly. The Business Software Alliance, which is an organization that fights against software piracy for software developers, has found that in the year 2000 that more than $2.6 billion were lost in revenue in the U.S. from software piracy. (Business Software Alliance) They also found that in the year 1999, the U.S. lost about 107,000 jobs and lost $5.3 billion in wages from softwa

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