Copyright : Introduction

The Copyright Designs and Patents Act (1988) states that it is illegal to copy software without the permission of the person or company that owns the copyright for the software. This means that it is illegal to make copies of floppy disks or CD-ROMs containing computer software or to install the same software onto more than one computer unless you have a special licence agreement.

The illegal copying of software is known as piracy and a person who does this is a pirate. Most pirates copy software for their own use but some pirates copy software to sell to other people. In some European countries it is estimated that each software package that is sold is copied seven times. In other parts of the world this figure is much higher. The growth of the Internet has increased the amount of software that is copied as many people choose to download illegally pirated software from the World Wide Web.

Illegal copying of software reduces the income of software companies. Having invested money in designing and producing software these companies need to earn income from software sales to recover these costs and make a profit. Without this income software companies will go out of business and the range of new software that is developed will be reduced.

The terms of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act make both the copying and the sale of copies of software packages illegal.

Despite the fact that copying software is illegal many people still do it. Therefore some software companies use copy protection methods to make it harder to copy software. They also use licence agreements to restrict the use that customers can make of the software that they purchase.

GCSE ICT Companion 04 - (C) P Meakin 2004