Software Piracy is a major legal risk. According to the
Business Software Alliance
a company can be fined $150,000 per violation. The BSA also
reports that over 25% of software in the USA is pirated.
While that figure may seem staggering it is not very
hard to believe when you look at the fine print in many software
licenses. A perfect example of this is the OEM licensing for
Microsoft's operating systems.
For example an OEM version of Windows 2000 can only be loaded
on a brand new machine that has never had a previous operating
system installed on it. Further more once this copy of Windows
2000 has been installed on a given machine it cannot be installed
on any other machine.
This means that if you were to purchase a new computer a
few years later and tried to save money by loading your old
machines copy of Windows 2000 on the new machine you would
be considered a software pirate by the BSA even if you removed
the software from and disposed of the old machine. |
