In the 1980s and 1990s, video and movie piracy was the biggest concern when it came to copyright infringement. In the late 1990s to 2000, copyright infringement moved from worrying over who was copying the latest DVD and movie to who was copying software programs such as computer games, computer applications and operating systems.
Software piracy jumped over 40 percent from the late 90s to the early part of 2000. The official definition of software piracy is the distribution and copying of any software program in an illegal manner. This can range from burning the software onto a DVD for distribution to taking the physical copy of the software and installing it on other computers that do not belong to you.
Many people do not believe that software piracy is affecting anyone because many times the computer user has purchased the program and is under the impression that they own all rights to that program or software. That is not case. When a person purchases a computer software program, they are purchasing limited rights to use that software on a limited number of computers. They do not own unlimited rights and downloads, which is often what computer users believe they are buying.
Software piracy has become such a concern in recent years that governments all across the world are starting to impose legal and financial penalties should someone be caught distributing, copying or selling pirated software. The United States has some of the strictest penalties when it comes to copyright violations. These penalties can range from having to pay federal damages of up to $150,000 per violation of the copyright agreement, being sentenced to five years in federal prison, paying a fine of $250,000 per violation and having to pay for any damages to the company that had their copyright agreement violated.
