Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Student Name
Primal Prasanga Wadanamby
Registration No.
2015/PgDISM/120
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude for our lecturer, Dr. Prathiba Mahanamahewa, for
his continuous advice and guidance given to me throughout this module. Without his
immense guidance and supervision, it would be hard for us to continue studies properly.
My heartfelt gratitude also goes to my friends for their continuous support guiding me in all
aspects throughout the module.
Finally I would like to express my sincere gratitude for all the people who gave their massive
support to make this project a success.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .........................................................................................................ii
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................. iv
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................... v
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 6
FACTORS BEHIND SOFTWARE PIRACY ........................................................................... 7
STATISTICAL ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................... 9
REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS .................................................................................................. 9
COUNTRY HIGHLIGHTS SRI LANKA ........................................................................ 12
LEGAL ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................ 14
LEGAL FRAMEWORK - INTERNATIONAL .................................................................. 14
LEGAL FRAMEWORK - LOCAL ..................................................................................... 14
CASES REPORTED LOCAL .......................................................................................... 16
SOLUTIONS ........................................................................................................................... 17
TECHNICAL ....................................................................................................................... 17
LEGAL ................................................................................................................................ 17
REFERENCING AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................. 19
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 - Average Rates of Unlicensed Software Use ............................................................. 9
Figure 2 - Emerging Markets 2014 .......................................................................................... 10
Figure 3 - Global PC Shipments .............................................................................................. 10
Figure 4 - Commercial Value of Pirated Software .................................................................. 11
Figure 5 - Commercial value of unlicensed software by country ............................................ 12
Figure 6 - Hardware Penetration .............................................................................................. 13
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BSA Business Solution Alliance
IT Information Technology
OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer
PC Personal Computer
GDP Gross Domestic Product
DMCA - Digital Millennium Copyright Act
PIPA - Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual
Property Act
SOPA - Stop Online Piracy Act
WIPO - World Intellectual Property Organization
IPA - Intellectual Property Act
CCA - Computer Crimes Act
IP Internet Protocol
3D 3 Dimensions
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INTRODUCTION
With the rise of the information technology era, significance for technology related products
and services increased rapidly among countries, companies and individuals. In particular, the
globalization all around the world has created the necessity of information. Copying and
distribution of related materials had become a liable solution to fulfill such necessity. Even
without authorization of its owners, people have been tending to duplicate books, music,
video and software. Then the term Digital Piracy was introduced to the digital world due to
rapid increase of these copyright violations.
SPA (1998: cited in Gopal et al 2004) defined Digital piracy as illegal duplication of digital
goods, software, documents, audio and video for any reason other than to backup without
explicit permission from and compensation to the copyright holder (SPA: 1998 cited in
Gopal et al. 2004, p-03). Such acts have become major concern for both product
manufacturer in various industries and the policy makers. Especially in software industry,
piracy has been the foremost threat which loosened revenues and violated copyrights of both
companies and individuals.
In todays world, software piracy can be seen in multiple forms. Aladdin (2008) has
mentioned 9 forms of software piracy as below.
CD-R Infringement
Soft-lifting
Software Counterfeiting
OEM Unbundling
Renting
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Legal enforcement
Copy right laws and policies are established in order to avoid infringements of rights
and to minimize software piracy. In European and North American region people are
aware of laws and policies on copyright infringement. With the legal enforcement in
their countries, they are obligated to respect copyrights and they have achieved lower
software piracy rate as a result of legal enforcement.
Public awareness
Lack of awareness in software license, agreements and legal aspects related are
known to be one of the major threat in software industry.
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STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
Software piracy has created negativity in economic and social factors. Especially in global
economy, it has been the cause of cripple in software industry. To measure and prevent
software piracy, Business Software Alliance (BSA) conducts studies globally. Key findings
of their recent global software study can be given as below.
Commercial value of $62.7 billion in 2013 for the market of pirated software ($4.7
billion more than year 2010)
Emerging economies have taken 56% of new PC shipments in 2011 and account for
more than half of all PCs in use
REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
World economy has changed its direction drastically towards emerging markets. Over the
past decade, global economy managed to survive in crisis which created falls in every
industry. Although the crisis affected to the software industry, piracy rate has been increased
continuously. According to Khadka (2015) global software piracy rate in 2007 was 38% and
in 2013 was 43%.
The increment of global software piracy rate is caused by variation in software piracy by
regions.
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Figure 1 illustrates how unlicensed software programs are in use regionally. According to
average rate given, it can be identified that Western Europe and North America holds the
lowest rates from all 6 regions. Asia-pacific region is in the prime location which holds 62%
in rate. According to Forbes (2014) Asia-pacific region is the native ground for worlds best
emerging economies. Especially countries as China and India (in Figure 2) placed well ahead
in the list.
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PC shipments for emerging economies have been increasing rapidly. In 2010, the difference
was marginal between matured and emerging economies. But the gap continuously increased
and emerging economies have extended their lead by acquiring 56% of rate in 2011. And
even demand for software has increased along with development and tends to accomplish by
using illegal software copies. Figure 4 clearly indicates emerging countries such as China,
India, Thailand, and Indonesia etc. are in the regions with high unlicensed software use rates.
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LEGAL ANALYSIS
LEGAL FRAMEWORK - INTERNATIONAL
Software privacy prevention has been prioritized internationally since 1980s. Therefore
countries with matured IT industry addressed laws and policies to protect the intellectual
right by preventing piracy. United States as the narrator, established acts in searching legal
solution for piracy prevention. Below given are three significant acts which presented in
United States in recent years.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was the first to be presented in 1998 which
criminalized illegal production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services. And
also it accompanied provisions to limit online copyright infringement. Apart from laws and
policies, the act has allowed to perform organizations to investigate and conduct actions on
such copy right violations.
(DMCA, 1998)
Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual
Property Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are two of the modern day
infringement addressing act presented in 2011. They facilitate the government and copyright
holders to take legal actions regarding infringements done by websites which are dedicated to
the sale of infringing or forged goods.
(Yeh, B.T. & Miller, J., 2011)
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merchandising, trade, and sales. Hence Companies Act also strengthen the legal frame work
of software piracy prevention.
(Nation.lk, 2007)
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SOLUTIONS
TECHNICAL
IP Tag
o Monitoring software programs location (at server) by installed PCs IP
address and making sure the serial number of the software doesnt appear on
multiple locations.
SecuROM
o It is a solution/file developed by SONY to prevent copying software/media
CD by home media duplication devices, professional duplicators, and even
resists reverse engineering of software.
LEGAL
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Aladdin. (2008). Software Piracy: Causes, Effects, and Prevention. [Online] Available From:
ftp://ftp.cisapp.com/pub/marketing/HASP/HASP_SRM/WhitePapers/WP_HASP_Software_Piracy.pdf
[Accessed: 17 April 2015]
ANCL, (2008). Another company charged with piracy. [Online] Available From:
http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2008/07/27/fin20.asp [Accessed: 28 April 2015]
BSA. (2009) Software Piracy on the Internet: A Threat to Your Security. [Online]. Available
From: http://portal.bsa.org/internetreport2009/2009internetpiracyreport.pdf. [Accessed: 16
April 2015]
BSA. (2012). Shadow Market 2011 BSA Global Software Piracy Study. [Online] Available
From:
http://globalstudy.bsa.org/2011/downloads/study_pdf/2011_BSA_Piracy_Study-
http://globalstudy.bsa.org/2013/downloads/studies/2013GlobalSurvey_Study_en.pdf
Crime
Act
of
2007.
Chapter
24.
Available
From:
http://www.slcert.gov.lk/Downloads/Acts/Computer_Crimes_Act_No_24_of_2007%28E%2
9.pdf [Accessed: 29 April 2015]
Forbes. (2014) Turkey and South Africa's Interest Rate Hikes Still Might Save Emerging
Markets
from
the
Federal Reserve.
[Online]
Available
From:
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Intellectual
Property
Act
of
2003,
Chapter
36.
Available
From:
Available
From:
http://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/87274/Khadka_Ishwor.pdf?sequence=1
[Accessed: 17 April 2015]
Limayem, M., Khalifa, M. & Chin, W.W. (2004). Factors motivating software piracy: a
longitudinal study. p. 124-131.
Luppicini, R & Adell, R. (2009) Handbook of Research on Technoethics. Information
Science Publishing.
Microsoft Corporation. (2011) Parties agree to settle in Microsoft Corporation vs. Media
Centre
case
in
the
Supreme
Court.
[Online]
Available
From:
digital
millennium
copyright
act
of
1998,
Chapter
12.
Available
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From:
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Trade Economics. (2015) Sri Lanka GDP Growth Rate. [Online] Available From:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/sri-lanka/gdp-growth [Accessed: 22 April 2015]
Yeh, B.T. & Miller, J. (2011) A Legal Analysis of S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act. [Online]
Available From: http://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41911.pdf [Accessed: 30 April 2015]
Yu, E. (2014) APAC software piracy rate climbs to 62 percent. [Online] Available From:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/apac-software-piracy-rate-climbs-to-62-percent/ [Accessed: 20
April 2015]
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