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Software Copyright Laws
Software Copyright Laws Fail to Provide Adequate Protection
Software copyright laws are among the most difficult to enforce among the masses. Many companies and corporations are also well known for overlooking these laws, which were designed to protect the makes of software from not earning their worth. Perhaps one of the biggest hitches leading so many software businesses to go out of business is the fact that they have a great deal of difficulty actually enforcing the software copyright laws that are in place and getting the money that is owed them according to the agreements that have been made with those on the using end of the software.
Software developers, particularly in the corporate world design software that makes other companies run more efficiently. The software allows these companies to save millions of dollars each year. Software copyright laws protect the interests of the software developers that create these massive programs. These programs are often designed specifically for that one company and are very expensive. The agreement often consists of a certain number of users with the company purchasing more licenses or copies of the software during expansions or paying some sort of royalties for the use of the software.
The purchasing companies agree to this and then more often than not fail to honor that agreement. The agreement is what allows this company to use that software, this agreement is what allows that permission. When companies aren't living up to their end of this agreement they are not only guilty of breaching that agreement but also of breaking software copyright laws. The trouble always lies in proving that they are not honoring the contract and the extent and duration of the breach.
Some of the ways that companies will argue in defense of them not paying the royalties, additional fees, purchasing additional software, etc. is that they upgraded computers and reused the old software (they did actually purchase the rights to use the original software and by doing so feel that they have broken no software copyright laws) the problem lies in the fact that adding ten new computers and placing the software on those should mean that you remove it from or get rid of 10 old computers. This is rarely how it works. So now they've basically stolen ten copies of software that can be well worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Multiply this by 10, 20, or 100 companies trying this or worse each year and the offending companies are costing software developers millions of dollars in profits. This is when software copyright laws are not as far reaching in their scope as they really need to be.
Software copyright laws exist to protect the software companies from this type of abuse and misuse, however, the hands of the companies are almost unilaterally tied when it comes to proving that software copyright laws have been broken in court.
There are always exceptions to every rule. In this case big business software developers that abuse the software copyright laws to the point of breaking make the exceptions rather than miserly consumers that do not wish to pay for the products they are consuming. The big boys are able to do this by offering licenses for their software and claiming that these laws do not apply to their situation because they are not actually selling the software only 'renting' out permission for people or companies to 'use' that software. The true irony is that these practices began as a response to the corporate irresponsibility mentioned above. It's amazing that the very software copyright laws that were created to protect these companies can't protect their consumers from the greed of the developing companies.
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Essentially, when looking for web pages that offer grocery coupons, links to free products and more it is important to make sure that a trustworthy site is entered. On the Internet, viruses and identity theft are a great concern. Of course, many of these online coupon resources require signing up, but it always depends on the information they ask to determine whether a page is fraud or not. In general such pages should not ask for social security numbers, credit card numbers or other account information. They may ask for name, age, telephone number and address. Signing up to one of these wonderful money saving pages is quick and easy. Many of these web pages also offer coupon printers so that the barcode on coupons gets printed legible for the store scanner. Some of the coupons and rebates found on those pages will help the shopper to free products or credit on a store card so that the shopper is able to receive free products at the next shopping trip. There are pages that even offer state customized advice. These pages offer a list of coupons, free products and special offers from certain stores close to the location that was picked as home location. This function offers shoppers the opportunity to exactly know where they are able to get free or reduced products close to home and shoppers do not have to do a lengthy search to find out which stores will accept certain deals and coupons. Some of the pages also offer forums, where other shoppers will post advice or deals that they saw in the area. This is often a great tool to save, since stores will have a reduced sale, a clearance sale after a certain holiday and other shoppers will post where they saw great deals. This way whoever is subscribed to receive alerts from the forum gets to know where great seasonal or short-term deals due to promotions and clearances can be found. The more pages a shopper is a part of, the more deals can be found and the more money can be saved. Money savers are everywhere and with little effort shoppers can save money for college funds, vacations funds or just to have some money for fun. When looking to reduce monthly spending and still trying to stay at a certain standard of living, online resources can be used to just do that. There are many companies, that will offer free trial sizes or regular sizes of new or improved products and to find out about such deals, a subscription to one of the moneysaving websites can help shoppers to more of these free products. It is easy to save money, and the more experienced a shopper gets and the more a shopper learns about saving money with these websites, the more will actually be saved. International Software Copyright International Software Agreement is a Matter of National Security Is there one governing law concerning international software copyright? According to agreements by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIP) any software written has an automatic copyright. This is a pretty conclusive consensus as far as an international copyright goes. The short answer would have been yes, but this was so much more informative. An international software copyright should not however be confused with a patent. Copyrights provide creators with the ability to prevent others from directly copying the code involved. A patent can actually limit the use of the software. Because of this, I'm sure you'll understand that patents are a hotly debated topic when it comes to software. The biggest thing to know about international software copyright is that your code is essentially protected the moment you create it. This is, unless you have some kind of contract through your employer that all code created by your belongs to them (these cases have been known to happen and provide excellent incentives for employees to always read the fine print). The problem that many companies are running into when it comes to enforcing international software copyright is that computers are not permanent fixtures in a company. Computers are rather disposable hardware when it comes to keeping up with evolving technologies and software needs to be updated when new computers are purchased. Rather than purchasing new copies of software when the computers are replaced companies are notorious for reusing old copies of the software. They are also famous for replacing 10 computers with the software installed with 40 new computers and installing the 10 copies of the software on all 40 computers. This is not in keeping with international software copyright. This is stealing and you'd be surprised at some of the good upstanding companies that do this on a regular basis. There really are no major differences between traditional policies for American copyright and international software copyright which makes legal issues, troubles, and woes that much easier to deal with. By having a unified international front thee are ramifications and legal actions that can be taken around the world without going through a great deal of international red tape. If you think dealing with the American government is bad, you should see how much fun it is to deal with the American government and another government for a legal action. The agreement between nations for international software copyright is probably one of the soundest possible decisions that can be made as military secrets of all governments have some degree of software in order to keep them operating. While it isn't quite as simplistic as stealing a computer program to unlock the defense secrets of a nation, having access to certain source codes could be problematic in the absolute best-case scenario. Keeping secrets isn't the only thing that makes this agreement so valuable, it is however, one of the most vital. Perhaps one of the greatest things to come about as the result of the international agreement to protect and honor software copyright is the peace of mind that is available to software developers in America and other technologically advanced countries that their source code won't be allowed to be stolen and used against them at a later date by someone in a developing nation with cheap labor and other overhead costs that American corporations simply cannot compete with. This could be devastating to the economies of technological societies if it were allowed to happen and the agreement for an international software copyright prevents that from being allowed to occur. |