How to catch software pirates

Distributing them is step two. Microsoft makes installing directly from the Web easy using ms-appinstaller. Learn how in this blog. Building your packages is step one. Find out the latest stats from Revenera's global open source audit teams. We are honored to receive this award and see the repeated recognition in the IoTBreakthrough Awards program. This industry recognition is a fantastic validation of our approach and technology platform.

Register today for part 3 of the Path to SaaS Monetization webinar series. The other method is to make a copy of the software and install it on many different machines. This is also known as ghosting or cloning. Other pirates get a copy of the software and upload it to the Internet so that anyone can download it. Commenting upon the victim of the pirates, the IT specialist said that the dealers either want to make quick money or they want you to go back to them so that they get more money for fixing the problem.

It so happens that the software architect wants the user to authenticate whether the software is the licensed version. Another IT specialist, told KD that apart from demotivating the architects that develop the software, he sees no benefits of criminalizing the trade. The software architects we have in Uganda are not commercially competing with Microsoft and so, why the fuss? Open source software is free but commercial ones go for some really big money.

There is no special pricing for developing countries and this can put buying such software out of reach for most small business owners in Uganda. Enforcement comes down to the financial capacity to pay people to uphold your rights, and the effectiveness of the actions. Why try to prosecute a million people, when you can take out that handful that runs the sites that facilitate infringement? The main reasons are: it takes a significant amount of resources to arrest and prosecute someone, and society views these crimes as less serious than drugs or violence.

In the United States, the police need probable cause to search or arrest you. Since anyone can go online and pretend to be someone else, it is difficult to obtain a warrant for that specific person.

In addition the police would have to investigate where this specific person is. Then they would have to establish probable cause to search this persons computer. After all this work it is possible they will find evidence of violation of the law.

Afterwards, you have the right to a day in court. What that means: the prosecutor has to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that you violated the law in downloading these files. As a defendant you don't have to prove anything! So if you can make an argument casting reasonable doubt in the mind of the jury, that you acquired these files legally or that your actions did not contribute to violating you will go free.

Another point to keep in mind: the government needs to train police to investigate these crimes. Being a policemen does not pay as much as being a programmer or an IT specialist. Thus it may be difficult to find someone to investigate these crimes. In part because police has limited resources, as so far other three answers quite clearly and correctly pointed out.

Currently, millions of people download movies and feel it is absolutely ok to do that regardless of what the law might say. Think about the reaction from the general public if suddenly a movie company decided to sue everyone who did that.

The backlash would be stellar. Both towards them and towards the government. Neither wants that, of course. If a law isn't taken seriously by almost anyone, you'd better not enforce it and repel it as soon as you manage to.

The police doesn't have infinite time. So they should prioritize their efforts based on the amount of damage that a crime does, the amount of effort it takes to handle the crime, and the likelihood to get a conviction.

I suspect that based on this, people using pirated software are low priority. But more important is that using pirated software is very likely not a crime, but a civil offense. The copyright holder can take you to court and sue you for damages and certainly can make you regret having pirated that software, but they won't get help from the police. So even if you are convicted in court and pay out a lot of money, it is a civil matter, so you will not be arrested by the police.

A very interesting and controversial topic. I see other had already told this is a matter of civil law in most countries, so I would like to leave a quote of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist. Stealing is taking something away from someone so they cannot use it. Stealing, like piracy and intellectual property, is another one of those terms cooked up to make us think of intellectual works the same way we think of physical items. But the two are very different. Earthquakes take away potential sales, as do libraries and rental stores and negative reviews.

Competitors also take away potential sales. Full interview - Aaron Swartz Interview from January 23rd, As others pointed out, in most jurisdictions police can't simply go after pirates on their own. The software maker won't do it in civil case, because tracking down and prosecuting a single pirated copy is usually more expensive than the income lost from one copy.

Not your online rep, not the health of the torrent community. Plain and simple, seeding is the easiest way to get caught for torrenting. That said, many communities require you to maintain a strict upload-to-download ratio. And the ones that do are generally safer harbors than most. But seeding for long periods of time, especially on older torrents, is still risky. OK, so you've got your software downloaded without getting caught. Big deal. Lots of software is available for full public download as a trial, and just requires activation.

And for that you need to track down an application called Serial Box. Serial Box is a comprehensive directory of working serials for pretty much any app or software suite you'd ever want to install. It covers past and present versions, and is available in both Windows and OS X flavors. To find it, just run its name through a search engine with the current month and year appended to it, along with your favorite direct download file sharing site. Like this: "Serial Box Megaupload"—only with a site that still exists.

RapidShare, maybe. From there, pick the free download it can be hard to find on the page; sometimes it's called "slow" download , and unzip and install the files. Serial Box and SerialSeeker should both open to the same app, though, and they're the ones you want to use.

Open either of those two up, find your software by scrolling or using the search bar, and click on the Serials tab. You'll find activation codes for every version of the software. Load 'er up. Most software is designed to accept pre-defined serial numbers that abide by some algorithm or another. That's to let you install it even if you're not connected to the internet, but it also means that you can activate it using a serial number someone else has already used.

But then, your app is probably going to try to "call home" to let its slave masters know that you're using the same authentication code as 25, other jackasses.