Piracy

How many times have you payed for a downloaded application or operating system? Never, then welcome aboard you are a Pirate, if you have uploaded files that others downloaded then you are a Captain !

Copyright laws protect software from piracy, but in some countries piracy rate is up to 95% of all running software, this due to legislation that is not aware enough and leaves pirates unleashed or in best conditions leaves back doors opened for them.

Losses are estimated by billions for software companies and stores which lose markets due to their software being accessed through the Internet, United States comes on the top followed by China, Russia, India, France and United Kingdom, they lost more than $27 billion in 2008.

Although many countries cooperate fighting piracy, still global piracy rate rose in 2008 from %38 to %41, but looking at the bright side, piracy rates dropped in little bit more than half of 110 studied countries and rose only in 16 countries. Egypt has done well as it dropped from %65 to %59 in the period between 2004 – 2008.

After that cops talk, let's be honest, is piracy so bad? No. Well, we know it violates copyrights and steal others' work but it doesn't destroy markets as we claimed earlier simply because these markets never existed from the beginning; no one in a third- world country would pay 300$ for Windows Vista Ultimate when that person lives on less than 2 dollars a day.

From that we find that piracy destroyed no markets, contrary they made companies and software more famous in parts of the world where these companies couldn't reach the public. This is not defending piracy but in a no piracy world - which is almost impossible, companies will be making little extra money, but millions of people will have no access to technology, then is it a Robin Hood act? No , it's still a theft and must be stopped and contained as much as it could be, but in a way that guarantees copyrights for producers and cheap access to technology for public. Companies should contribute more in Open Source communities to provide basic software for free or at least adjust prices in countries according to local standards of living.

Tell us what you think about piracy and what is the best way to fight it without depriving the poor from accessing technology and still not destroying IT industries?