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Is your software legal? Software piracy, the act of illegally copying and selling software, is a problem that costs Europeans thousands of lost job opportunities and millions in tax revenues each year. By definition, illegal software is a program that has been copied without the manufacturers authorisation, sold on, and/or installed on a users hard disk without a licence. Anyone involved, from the person copying the software to the owner of the shop selling it, can be prosecuted in the courts.
Over half of the software in Western Europe is thought to be illegal. The Business Software Alliance (BSA) estimates that the cost of this to the European software industry is $550 million (£367 million) a year. An estimated 43% of the software in Britain is illegal, 50% in Germany, 57% in France and a staggering 73% in Spain.
Software piracy doesnt just cost software developers money. If European software piracy could be reduced to a level similar to the US 39% the BSA estimates that 90,000 new jobs would be created in Europe and tax revenue would increase by $2.3 billion (£1.53 billion).Legal aids
Closer to home, legal software is much safer for you and the PCs in your business. Not only do illegal software programs often contain bugs and viruses that can corrupt hard disks, they isolate you from technical support offered by software developers. Moreover, you cannot upgrade legally. Legal software, on the other hand, is bug free, virus free, comes with free technical support, disks and help manuals. Plus, being registered entitles you to future upgrades and maintenance releases as they become available.Identifying illegal software
So how can you tell if your Microsoft software is illegal? The first thing is, dont panic. Its relatively easy to tell if your software is genuine and, even if its not, Microsoft can help you.
The most important thing is to make sure you have a valid licence for every piece of software you have installed on your PCs. Whenever you buy a piece of software, you effectively buy the licence the right to use the product. If you are not in physical possession of the licence, your software is illegal a photocopy will not do. You must have a licence whether you bought the software new, pre-installed on a PC or second-hand. The rule is simple. Only the owner of the licence is the legal owner of the software.