Software Piracy
Software Piracy is currently one of the hottest issues being discussed by organizations origination from a wide-range of industries. Almost all companies these days use computer software solutions for most of their business processes and if most, if not all, companies that use software products will engage in this illegal act, it will surely, inevitably lead to the bankruptcy of even the biggest software developing companies worldwide. Software piracy is indeed the culprit behind the weak global software developing and programming economy.
Despite the worldwide increase in software piracy rates, the United States still remains as one of the key players in the battle against software piracy and software pirates (Sachoff, 2010). A study (conducted 2 years ago) showed that software piracy rates in the U.S. are the lowest with only a 20% rate of pirated software products—the lowest value in any nation of the world (Sachoff, 2010). The results of that study are not really surprising. It is pretty obvious, and there are real and hard evidences that could prove how the U.S. federal government despises software piracy.
We may say that the U.S. federal government could be harsh when it comes to wiping out software piracy. The U.S. government was able to formulate two bills that they think could battle and hopefully, completely discourage software pirates from pirating original software products in the future. These two bills are the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act). These two bills later on became the most controversial topic discussed over the internet because it kind of gives the U.S. Federal Government the authority to shut down any firm or website that violates these bills regardless of their location. There are already a lot of websites that had been shut down because of PIPA alone. Whether the government will pass the SOPA bill and make it an ordinance or not is still being discussed. Nevertheless, the bottom line here is that the U.S. can show and can prove to worldwide online and offline communities how it values each and everyone’s property, be it a material or an intellectual property.
Works Cited
Sachoff, M. (2010). U.S. has lowest software piracy rate. Webpronews.com.
