If you are in campus then one time or another you have done it. You probably bought it is some tacky small shop in town, but you are not stupid. With the throwaway price you knew something wasn’t right or maybe you downloaded it from a torrent site. You computer keeps telling you, “this copy of windows is not genuine.” We have all at one time used pirated software for one reason or another simply because it was too expensive or we were too stingy to buy the real thing. However before you go down this road or rather continue down this road it would be wise to know the downside of pirating software.
1. Its Illegal
Software piracy is a crime and is technically the stealing of intellectual property. You are basically taking the product of another person without their express permission or remuneration and using it for free. The penalties for stealing intellectual property include hefty fines or prison time or both.
2. Its risky
When downloading pirated software from the internet one should be aware that it is usually computer hackers who pirate this software for you and some of them have ulterior motives. After pirating the software the hackers usually bundle it with viruses, worms and back doors that are meant to steal your information of give the hackers future access to your information and computer.
3. No after-sales service
If you use pirated software and something goes wrong with the software or it causes harm to your computer system, you will be stuck since the hackers who pirated the software will not be available to help you and you can’t also contact the original publishers of the software since you have pirated their software which is in itself illegal.
4. Can’t be updated
Pirated software cannot be updated and so it becomes a security risk to your computer. Updates for software usually occur via secure servers after the server has verified that your copy of the said software is authentic then the update takes place. Therefore fake software products will be denied access to the update servers.
It would help if the cost of acquiring the software is affordable to students but piracy is stealing from the makers of the software. According to a study, back in 2001, software companies lost 11 billion dollars in revenue and approximately 40 percent of business software was pirated. Software developers are in need of a source of income which we stifle every time we use or promote the use of pirated software.
