Software piracy is the unauthorized use, copying, modification, distribution, or sale of software and digital content — and it is a form of theft with real legal and professional consequences. Organizations that routinely engage in software piracy expose themselves, and potentially their employees, to significant legal liability.
Software Piracy
I've got a question for you. Would you steal your neighbor's car? Most of us would probably say no. But what is the reason for that? We could all have different reasoning. For instance, some of us might say, "Well, it would be pretty awkward for their car to suddenly be in my driveway." Or some of us might say, "Well, that's a big object. I'd be afraid of getting caught." Some of us might say, "Well, that's a huge ticket value item. I wouldn't want to steal something that has that much value. Other stuff, smaller stuff, might be okay." I'm hoping that the majority of people would say, I don't even like the idea of stealing, that that would be unethical for me. But we all have different reasons why we wouldn't steal.
Here's a model of a Porsche 911. A fancy car. I would love to own this car. If I actually owned the car, would it be okay for somebody to steal that? Or, for that matter, even be able to steal this model? This model is considerably less than that car, obviously. But is it okay for somebody to steal this model from me?
Another example: this really doesn't have any monetary value out there, but it has a lot of value to me. This is a picture of my car that my daughter drew for me, and I love it. But is it okay for somebody to steal this picture? What if it was digitally created? Maybe she created it on a computer. Is it okay for somebody to steal that from me? Or how about I create a game that has these cars that raced around. Is it okay for somebody to steal that from me?
Software piracy is stealing. If I create something digitally, then I want it to be used for the purposes that I intended it to be used for. So anytime you're using, copying, modifying, distributing or selling software that doesn't belong to you, that you don't have the rights to do any of this, that's called software piracy, and it's a form of stealing.
Many argue that you're just stealing from a big company and you're not really impacting their bottom line. So in those scenarios, where do you draw the line? A car manufacturer like Porsche makes tons of profits. So are you willing to steal a whole car? Or how about a toy manufacturer of a model car? Or how about a struggling artist that's making a picture? Or perhaps it's somebody who is a musician — a struggling artist is a musician and you're stealing music from them, because that happens a lot as well. So where do you draw the line at that?
Software piracy is very prevalent out there, and I'm not going to get into the ethical dilemmas of doing software piracy as individuals. But what I will do is address it from a company perspective: if your company regularly practices software piracy, it could land them in a lot of trouble, and perhaps even the individuals that help facilitate that. So it is something that I'd watch out for. I personally wouldn't work for a company where that's a general practice, that they just steal software and use software outside of the terms and services. They either have to be in compliance, or at least working towards compliance, trying to do the right thing.
There's a good chance that you're going to be put into a position where you're going to have to determine what your comfort level is with software piracy.
I was given the opportunity to be part of a service, a video streaming service. I could be a part of this service for free and essentially watch any movie or show that I wanted to watch for free. I chose to turn it down. I chose to turn it down because it is a form of software piracy and also stealing. No judgment against the people that were watching these videos and were part of the service and offering the service — they have to make their own decision. It's just not a road that I wanted to go down.
I just think about these videos that I'm creating. I spend a ton of time filming each one of these videos. I take multiple cuts to make sure I get it right. And for me to create this content and then for somebody to just steal this content and use it for their own purposes, something I didn't intend to use this content for.
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