Why Software and Media Piracy is Truly on the Increase

The world over, the effects of piracy are being felt. Large co-operations such as Microsoft which produces software for the entire world are losing billions of dollars as a result of piracy. This problem is further aggravated by the ease of duplication through down loads and making and selling multiple copies from one original source. Nowadays, it is unheard of to buy original software and entertainment media in some places.

The first thing that we should know is the cause of piracy. Although none of them are justifiable, we should take them into account so as to relate and get into the minds of the perpetrators. The major cause of piracy is to reduce costs. Let's take a practical example of this; the cost of a fully working computer without the software is about 400 US dollars for a cloned computer (Intel Pentium 4, 512 mb RAM, 80 GB, 15" CRT monitor) can a consumer then spend 200 US dollars for Microsoft windows and another 100 US dollars for Microsoft office if he can spend less than 8 US dollars for them?

Criminal investigation agencies in some countries do nothing to eliminate the problem of piracy. In the recent past, China has come into the spotlight for the rampant spread of piracy and has taken measures to control it. Developing countries like Kenya have laws which protect the software's owner from piracy but the police do little to stop the software pirates. You can get all the software, music and movies that you want with the police right next to you and they won't do anything.

The unavailability of software plays a crucial role in piracy. Since shops do not stock original CDs they become rare because only a small percentage of shops can get for you that original CD. When companies decide to target specific markets, they can only do this with tangible products. Microsoft is singling out the American market for a year in its launch of the Zune media player to rival the i-pod; it cannot do this for software since they will be distributed over the internet and illegal duplications. Play station 3 is also being sold in selected markets because it cannot be duplicated easily. Movies are now being released simultaneously the world over to reduce privacy as the movies become obsolete after people have watched them.

Some people believe it or not do not know that they are buying illegally produced software which they can be prosecuted for. Ignorance in the computer and entertainment sectors is high.

So, now that we know what leads to software and media piracy, this problem can be tackled. First of all, the police and government the world over should increase their efforts in the reduction of this vice. Viable policies should be enacted, the police ought to be trained and retrained on piracy and the consumers must be aware of the consequences of piracy.

Software and media sources should be in a form that is not duplicate able like the old vinyl records which were not easy for the consumers to reproduce. Computer software and hardware manufacturers are in addition killing themselves by being dim-witted. I say this because of the fact that they produce software and hardware that is used to duplicate their own material. If there were no CD and DVD writing software and hardware, they would not be duplicated. The next generation of CDs, blue-ray disks will be duplicated and the only way to avoid this is by not producing machines that can duplicate them. Even though duplication can also be done through flash disks, there were no flash disks in the past, say 10 years that could hold large volumes of information and were available to the masses. Co-operations would then have saved a lot of money.