Software piracy and copyright

Concepts

Intellectual Property:

• Defined as the property resulting from the fruits of mental labor
• Owner of IP can protect it through copyright Laws

Plagiarism:

• Is the appropriating or imitating of another’s ideas and claiming them as your own.
• In terms of software plagirism becomes less clear because of colloaboration in the creation process
• All work done should be acknowledged

Copyright Laws:

• Copyright laws are in place to safeguard the intellectual property rights of the authors
• Provides economic incentives for creative activity.
• -Copyright doesn’t protect ou against another software developer making a similar program

Licence Conditions:

• Single User Licesnse allows customer to make one installation and one backup. Sometimes more may be permitted
• Site licences permit organisations to install the site licences on a large number of computers
• Multi-user licences similar to site licences but have a set number of computers allowed to be accessed.

Shareware:

• Shareware is covered by copyright and you require a licene to use the product
• Purchasers are allowed to make and distribute copies of the software
• Once a user has tested and decided to use it, it must be purchased

Public Domain:

• Software becomes public domain when the copyrights holder reliquishes all rights to the software
• Software in the public domain must be clearly marked as such.
• Developing new works based on the product is allowed without restriction

Open Source:

• Covered by copyright laws but removes many traditonal copyrights.
• Source code is avaliable to all to modify and redistribte.
• Modified products must be released using the same licence.
• Open source encourages the collaborative development of software

Ownership versus licensing:

• Ownership impleies you have rights to do as you wish the property.
• Licensing agreements specify the framework in which the program may be used
• Licensing software prevents users modifying the porgram without the consent of the author

Reverse engineering:

• Analyzing a product and its parts to understand how it works
• Then recreate the original product with the same or a similar design.

Decompilation:

• Opposite of compilation
• Translates the machine executable to higher-level code.
• Allows the design to be easily understood

Technologies to combat software piracy

Disk copy protection

• Prevented software copying by not allowing certain features of the software to become unusable
• Over time pirates have been able to identify the disk protection method
• Protection technologies have advanced bt they have been cracked fairly rapidly.

Hardware Serial Numbers

• Software reads embedded serial numbers in the hardware.
• This serial number can be read and compared to the number stored in the executable code and will not run if they do not equal

Site Licene Installation Counter on a Network

• In larger organisations software is installed via network server
• This network server has a installation counter utility
• When this counter goes over the specified number in the license, the server will refuse to install

Registration Code

• A registration code is used to activate products during the intital stage in the instllation process
• For single registration the code is unique, for site or multi-users the code is shared
• Most registration codes today, are either generated or verified over the internet
• If registration fails, the product will usually have limited functionality or stop working after a set amount of time

Encryption Code

• Effectively scrambles the exectuation code and will only be decrypted via a decryption code
• When the software is connected to the internet, the decryption key is sent to the user and decrypts the executable

Back to Base Authentication:

• Validates the application by contacting the software publishers server and checking if the user has a valid licence
• May be used for everytime it is run or just during installation
• For software that requires internet connection, excellent way for authentication