Software Piracy at CWU Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Software Piracy at CWU - Research Paper Example The proposal includes suggestions on how to tackle this growing problem and the possible preventive actions that the school authorities can undertake in order to discourage software piracy. The report also includes recommendations pertaining to countermeasures that can be taken without making it seem like the school officials are trying to curtail the use of computers by the students. Please feel free to contact me at (indicate phone number) if you have any questions or comments regarding the content and interpretation of this report. Thank you for taking the problem of software piracy on campus seriously. Sincerely, ______________________________ (Name) Enclosure: Student Software Piracy Problems at CWU Executive Summary This report provides an analysis and evaluation of of the current senior college point of view, sentiments, and attitude with regards to software piracy. Methods used include question and answer surveys pertaining to the current knowledge of the senior class members about software piracy. The first category of questions were answerable by true or false with the results showing that 84 % of students answered true when asked if they knew that purchased software allowed for only one back up copy for the user. 16 of the students answered false to the same question. 94 students answered true when asked if they knew that making copies of copyrighted software is a federal crime, only 6 students answered false. 82 students knew that making a copy of a software program owned by my company for use at home, unless expressly allowed, is a violation of copyright law, 18 students answered false to the same question. 92 students also answered true when asked if they knew that software piracy is punishable by fine and... The intention of this study is software piracy as a problem that has plagued software manufacturers since the first personal computer was developed. Although the problem is fast becoming a society based problem, the reality is that college students comprise the largest segment of software pirates. College students do not seemed to recognize software piracy as a breach of ethics and find the practice to be socially acceptable and legal to a certain degree. Although CWU students have never been caught for software piracy and our school administration insures that all software installed on campus computers are properly licensed, that does not mean to say that software piracy does not exist on campus. Software piracy is a real problem onour campus and the university administrators seem powerless to stop it. At CWU, our Information technology department is trying to do their very best to resolve the software piracy issue among the student body but it seems that there are still certain ins tances when the piracy falls through the cracks and goes unnoticed. In fact, there are certain times when the student even uses the campus lab computers in order to access and download pirated software. Although most students know about the legal restrictions and obey the laws, there are still those students who push the envelope and try to see just how far they can take their piracy skills without getting caught.