This causes people to think its use is always legal. This is not true as the intellectual property rights are the same in the cyberspace as they are in the physical world. The owner of the intellectual property does not allow any form of copying and sharing of their items. If this happens, it is an infringement of the intellectual property rights. This paper suggests that the problem of theft of intellectual property can be solved if all organizations that deal with computers have some set of rules on the usage of the same. The policy will simply highlight what is allowed and what is not when individuals are using the organization computers.
The internet has also been used to infringe on the intellectual property regarding the use of the software. For instance, according to Business Software Alliance, almost 37% of business software all over the world are pirated (Advisen Special Report 2010). In the event that an organization's computer was used in the process of pirating the software, the owner may find himself in the corridors of justice. For example, while the authentic owner of the software may be lenient and decide to stop the use of such a software, some may demand financial remedies that may run up to $150,000. The government may institute criminal charges against the organization and this may be close to $250,000 (Advisen Special Report 2010). Apart from the loss of important data in the event of such hacking, the organization may be subjected to the court process.
Even institutions of higher learning are not left out in the case of infringement of intellectual property. This is especially due to the tendency of using the school computers to download music by students. However, other forms of violation of intellectual property rights take place in education institutions such as plagiarism. The institutions have policies governing such incidences. The organization should ensure there is a good network administration to prevent illegal file sharing within an organization.