What is Software Piracy

Software piracy is the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software. This can be done by copying, downloading, sharing, selling, or installing multiple copies onto personal or work computers. When you purchase software, you are actually purchasing a license to use it, not the actual software. The license is what tells you how many times you can install the software, therefore it’s important to read and understand it. If you make more copies of the software than the license permits, you are pirating and thus breaking the law. Whether you are casually making a few copies for friends, loaning CDs, downloading or distributing pirated software from the Internet, or buying a single software program and then installing it on multiple computers, you are committing copyright infringement—this is software piracy.

Software Piracy Data


View the Piracy Rate by Region

A number of factors contribute to regional differences in piracy — the strength of intellectual property protection, the availability of pirated software, and cultural differences. In addition, piracy is not uniform within a country; it varies from city to city, industry to industry and demographic to demographic. While efforts to cut piracy in large businesses may be successful, piracy can increase as a result of new users from small businesses entering the market for the first time.

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