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In this paper, we attempt to investigate the effect of usage of pirated software on productivity by utilizing three distinct indicators of productivity for developing countries and an unbalanced panel data set containing the years between 2003 and 2017. Our hypothesis claims that increase in the use of pirated software enhance the productivity level in developing countries. Firstly, we implemented univariate analyses and the results of univariate analyses implied that the usage of pirated software and productivity are positively and significantly related in all of three models. Secondly, three control variables (i.e., education, investment, and openness) were employed in our three productivity models in order to check if the findings of univariate analyses remain valid and robust. After inclusion of the three control variables, the statistically significant positive association between the use of pirated software and productivity were observed in all models. Regarding to control variables, they take expected signs whenever they are statistically significant. Based on the estimated coefficients of PROD1 models, a 1% positive change in usage of pirated software leads to a rise in a growth in productivity by 0.1023% and 0.0623% in univariate and multivariate models, respectively while a 1% positive change in usage of pirated software leads to a rise in a growth in productivity by 0.1072% and 0.0684% in univariate and multivariate models of PROD2, respectively. Besides a 1% positive change in usage of pirated software induce to an increase in productivity level by 0.0881 and by 0.0601, respectively in PROD3 models. Secondly, three control variables, namely education, investment, and openness, were included in our three productivity models to test if the finding of univariate analyses keeps its validity. EDUC, INVEST, and OPEN variables are taken the anticipated positive influences and they are statistically significant at least at the level of 5%. More specifically, in estimation results for PROD1 model, one percent increase in EDUC, INVEST, and OPEN variables cause to a jump in productivity by 0.2309%, 0.1198%, and 0.7359%, respectively. Openness of an economy has the most explanatory power among all independent variables. In addition to PROD1 model, in estimation results for PROD2 model, one percent increase in EDUC, INVEST, and OPEN variables cause to a jump in productivity by 0.2482%, 0.0893%, and 0.7211%, respectively. Besides a 1% positive change in EDUC, INVEST, and OPEN variables induce to an increase in productivity level by 0.3345%, 0.0341%, and 0.2238%, respectively in PROD3 models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measures of ethical behaviours in research may be subject to social desirability bias (SDB). Most behavioural aspects of software piracy research are a subset of ethical research. Few studies of software piracy have explicitly addressed the issue of SDB. In this article, the extent of SDB that may be present in software piracy is empirically assessed. This was done by comparing SDB in software piracy under three conditions using the 40-item Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) scale. First, software piracy behaviour was examined in an experimental setting with actual money at stake. This allowed subject behaviour to be observed rather than inferred from self-report responses. Second, a survey was conducted to test the extent of software piracy based on subject self-report responses. Third, the extent of software piracy was also assessed based on peer-report responses (i.e.: the subject reported whether their peers would pirate). A comparison of the responses in the three conditions allows us to draw inferences about SDB in software piracy research. Self-report surveys exhibited high levels of SDB. The behaviour in the experimental condition, and responses in the peer-report survey method, did not exhibit SDB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the intention and participation in media and software piracy have been widely investigated, little is known concerning the determinants associated with electronic book piracy. With the adoption of e-book reader devices, Internet piracy remains a global concern that impacts multiple stakeholders, including authors, publishers, and libraries. The current study aims to examine the factors associated with electronic book piracy among college students. Results indicate that peer association and perceived risk are significantly linked to one's participation in e-book piracy. However, techniques of neutralization are not statistically significant. Libraries and publishers must educate students and raise awareness about the potential outcomes and risks related to e-book piracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the effect of usage of pirated software on poverty by using six prominent poverty indicators for the samples of developing and Latin America countries. The data utilized in models is unbalanced and employ the period between 2003 and 2017. Our hypothesis asserts that increases in usage of pirated software diminish poverty in developing and Latin America countries. Firstly, univariate analyses are conducted, and the results of univariate analyses are demonstrated that there is a statistically significant opposite relationship between usage of pirated software and poverty in all six distinct poverty models. Secondly, three control variables (i.e., unemployment, health expenditure, and human capital) were included to our six poverty models to find out if the finding of univariate analyses retains its validity. The statistically significant reverse relationship between usage of pirated software and poverty remained the same after the inclusion of the three covariates. In other words, usage of pirated software maintains its negative significant effect on poverty in all models for both developing and Latin America countries samples. In consideration of the control variables, statistically significant negative coefficients were obtained for health expenditure and human capital whereas a positive coefficient was obtained for unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The emergence of internet-enabled technology has led to the software service model in which the software firm, instead of the consumer, maintains software ownership. This model can curtail software piracy more effectively than the traditional on-premises software model. However, software firms are not abandoning traditional on-premises software but embracing both models simultaneously. In this study, the authors consider a firm's software bundling decision in combination with its piracy deterrence strategy. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: The authors build three stylized models to analytically compare the bundling strategies under three scenarios: no piracy, piracy is present and piracy is present while the firm applies digital rights management (DRM). Findings: The authors find pure bundling (PB) to be the optimal strategy due to the combination of competition and cannibalization effects in mixed bundling (MB). Simultaneously, consumers may enjoy greater surplus in PB than in MB, making PB the preferred strategy for both the firm and consumers. Interestingly, the win-win outcome coexists with some degree of piracy in the market. Originality/value: The results provide important insights for firms and policy-makers and contribute to the literature on piracy and product bundling. First, the authors show piracy could be another driver for product bundling, which has never been discussed in prior literature. Second, the authors suggest an alternative perspective; that PB may be a desirable outcome for both firms and consumers when considering piracy and DRM. More surprisingly, this desirable outcome occurs with some level of piracy in the market. The presence of piracy leads to competition and cannibalization effects in MB, which eventually results in the win-win outcome in the software market for both the firm and the consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how software pirates who formed the 'warez scene' appropriated telephone network infrastructures and Bulletin Board System (or BBS) technology to circulate computer software across national borders. This paper is shedding more light on the roots of contemporary internet-based software piracy by investigating how appropriation of international telephone networks contributed to the globalization of digital software distribution. It also highlights the mundane aspects of the organization of media convergence on the junction between analog and digital technologies. Here I argue that the use of telephone networks as a means of transnational software distribution is an instance of actors setting up a convergent media environment driven by the cultural logic of a specific subculture. My paper provides an overview of BBS technology to demonstrate how it linked analog and digital domains and then outlines its cultural significance, ultimately discussing the appropriation of BBSes and their role in transnational expansion of 'the scene'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study attempted to confirm the existence of a suppression situation among social learning, low self-control, and software piracy measures. Using a cross-sectional study of middle and high school students, structural equation modeling was used to confirm the measurement of a second-order social learning factor and the existence of a mediated suppression situation of low self-control through social learning on software piracy. The existence of a suppression situation was confirmed when low self-control was modeled with an indirect effect through social learning: The direct effect of low self-control on software piracy flipped direction from positive to negative and social learning's direct effect size increased. This suppression situation was only demonstrated when social learning was modeled as a second-order latent factor. Future research of social learning should consider how its indicators are measured and the importance for the use of all social learning subdomains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software piracy has been known as unauthorised reconstruction or illegal redistribution of a licenced software. Detecting pirated from base software is a major concern since pirated software can lead to significant financial losses as well as serious security vulnerabilities. To detect software piracy, we have recently proposed Metamorphic Analysis for Automatic Software Piracy Detection (MetaSPD) with a proof-of-concept evaluation. The core idea of MetaSPD was inspired from metamorphic malware detection due to its similarity of software piracy detection. MetaSPD works primarily based on mining the opcode graph of the base software to extract micro-signatures. Then, it leverages a classifier model to decide whether a given suspicious file is a pirated version of the base software. This paper extends our prior work in several respects. First, we present a retrospective appraisal of the main literature aiming at laying bare the status quo of software piracy detection and arguments on the current problems of the field to motivate our work. We then elaborate on MetaSPD itself and the constituent components. We provide two extensive experiments to evident the effectiveness of MetaSPD. The experiments have been carried out on two different datasets. Each dataset comprises 1300 morphed variants of the respective base software that act as pirated versions of that software. We conducted our experiments using three different classifiers. The paper is also enriched with a detailed discussion of the different properties and concerns of MetaSPD. The results corroborate that an attacker, who is using a pirated version of the given software, can hardly hide illegal usage of the software even by applying superabundant obfuscations to the code. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Duplication in software systems is an important issue in software quality assurance. While many methods for software clone detection in source code and structural models have been described in the literature, little has been done on similarity in the dynamic behaviour of interactive systems. In this paper, we present an approach to identifying near-miss interaction clones in reverse-engineered UML sequence diagrams. Our goal is to identify patterns of interaction (“conversations”) that can be used to characterize and abstract the run-time behaviour of web applications and other interactive systems. In order to leverage existing robust near-miss code clone technology, our approach is text-based, working on the level of XMI, the standard interchange serialization for UML. Clone detection in UML behavioural models, such as sequence diagrams, presents a number of challenges—first, it is not clear how to break a continuous stream of interaction between lifelines (representing the objects or actors in the system) into meaningful conversational units. Second, unlike programming languages, the XMI text representation for UML is highly non-local, using attributes to reference-related elements in the model file remotely. In this work, we use a set of contextualizing source transformations on the XMI text representation to localize related elements, exposing the hidden hierarchical structure of the model and allowing us to granularize behavioural interactions into conversational units. Then we adapt NICAD, a robust near-miss code clone detection tool, to help us identify conversational clones in reverse-engineered behavioural models. These conversational clones are then analysed to find worrisome interactions that may indicate security access violations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Software piracy is a modern day war between malicious software pirates and software developers. Annually, developers lose billions of dollars in revenue to piracy, making it an industry bane that must be controlled by all means. The drive for improved software protection systems has increased the complexity of both proposed and implemented schemes. Some of the methods are cost intensive in terms of development, management and hardware requirement (smart card tokens), while this may be justified for costly software applications, for low cost and basic applications by small scale developers, implementing advanced protection schemes is often economically infeasible and largely and overkill. This study presents a subtle software protection model using serial keys. The model implements a form of obfuscation by using hidden codes, encrypted functions and uses a distraction technique by diverting the attention of potential hackers to the serial key while trickily using coded strings for the actual user authentication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the determinants of software piracy losses along five major macroeconomic dimensions: Technological, Educational, Institutional, Access to Information and Labor force. The study was conducted based on a large dataset available from 1995 to 2010 and comprising 81 countries. As for the Technological dimension, more patents by residents increases piracy losses while the effect of R&D is the opposite (decreases piracy losses). In terms of the Educational dimension, the results show that more spending on education increase the piracy losses but, at the same time, more schooling years have the contrary effect. Concerning the Institutional dimension, nations with less corruption have lower piracy levels. Regarding the Access to Information, it seems that access to Internet diminishes the losses while the share of Internet broadband subscriptions has no effect. The results also show that, regarding the Labor dimension, employment in services has a deterrent effect while labor force with higher education and youth unemployment increases piracy losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine global trajectories, dynamics, and tendencies of software piracy to ease the benchmarking of current efforts toward harmonizing the standards and enforcements of intellectual property rights (henceforth IPRs) protection worldwide.Design/methodology/approach For that purpose, the authors estimate dynamic panel data models for 99 countries over the period 1994-2010.Findings The main finding suggest that, a genuine timeframe for standardizing IPRs laws in the fight against software piracy is most feasible within a horizon of 4.3-10.4 years. In other words, full (100 percent) convergence within the specified timeframe will mean the enforcements of IPRs regimes without distinction of nationality or locality within identified fundamental characteristics of software piracy. The absence of convergence (in absolute and conditional terms) for the World panel indicates that, blanket policies may not be effective unless they are contingent on the prevailing trajectories, dynamics and tendencies of software piracy. Policy implications and caveats are also discussed.Originality/value It is the first attempt to empirically assess the convergence of IPRs systems across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CodeMist is an innovative security framework that leverages both passive and active approaches to prevent piracy of cloud-based rental software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the determinants of adolescents’ software piracy over time and discover gender differences based on Self-Control and Problem Behavior theories. Using the Korean Youth Panel Survey data, both random and fixed effects models were estimated although this study focused on within effects. Findings showed that increases in problematic off-line behavior, psychological health problems, and time spent on computers, as well as decrease in self-control, increased the likelihood of computer piracy among Korean adolescents. Additional analyses identified gender differences. Implications for policy and future research as well as limitations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper studies the impact of software piracy on prominent and non-prominent software developers in markets based on a two-sided platform business. User behavior is imperfect and, when adopting a platform, users only take prominent software into account. We show that prominent software exhibits higher piracy rates than non-prominent software. However, contrary to intuition, this does not necessarily mean that prominent software developers benefit more from increased software protection. Indeed, we show that prominent developers may lose out whereas non-prominent developers may gain from better software protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers in virtually every discipline rely on sophisticated proprietary software for their work. However, some researchers are unable to afford the licenses and instead procure the software illegally. We discuss the prohibition of software piracy by intellectual property laws, and argue that the moral basis for the copyright law offers the possibility of cases where software piracy may be morally justified. The ethics codes that scientific institutions abide by are informed by a rule-consequentialist logic: by preserving personal rights to authored works, people able to do so will be incentivized to create. By showing that the law has this rule-consequentialist grounding, we suggest that scientists who blindly adopt their institutional ethics codes will commit themselves to accepting that software piracy could be morally justified, in some cases. We hope that this conclusion will spark debate over important tensions between ethics codes, copyright law, and the underlying moral basis for these regulations. We conclude by offering practical solutions (other than piracy) for researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – In consumer marketing literature, the ethical/moral components of consumer behavior have been recognized as important factors in individuals' involvement in software piracy. However, there remains unanswered the question of which specific components are being referred to and how they explain consumer software piracy in the virtual knowledge-sharing community. This question is particularly unaddressed for those consumers who take the risks associated with piracy believing their acts to be taking from the haves (software producers) and giving to the have-nots. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach – In this research, the authors propose a synergistic model that adopts the perspective of heroism and social exchange, and test it with the data collected from a virtual community. To test the proposed research model, the authors investigated 489 subjects and examined the hypotheses by applying the partial least squares method. Findings – The findings show that the heroism construct has significant influence on sharing behavior in relation to cost factors, but not to benefit factors. Heroism stands out as the major construct in explaining sharing behavior. Thus, the research shows that the consumer software piracy present in the virtual knowledge-sharing community is a social behavior of exchange. Originality/value – Methodologically, the study proposes a new model for researchers and practitioners to understand consumer software piracy in the virtual community. Managerially, software producers should take it into consideration when formulating their product-pricing strategy, to ensure that software producers and the young can both win in the "buy or steal" war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an extension of the debate on the nexus between the strength of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and prospects for knowledge economy. It assesses the relationships between software piracy and scientific publications in African countries for which data is available. The findings, which reveal a positive nexus, are broadly consistent with the school of thought postulating that the East Asian miracle has been largely due to weaker IPRs regimes at the early stages of development. As a policy implication, less stringent IPRs regimes on scientific-related software (at least in the short run) will substantially boost contributions to and dissemination of knowledge through scientific and technical publications in Africa. IPRs laws (treaties) on scientific-oriented software should be strengthened in tandem with progress in: (a) scientific and technical publications; and (b) knowledge spillovers essential for economic growth and development. More policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalence of unauthorized downloading and duplication has been a serious ethical and financial threat. The current study explored the antecedents of digital piracy attitudes and intentions in a country with a high piracy rate. A structural equation model was proposed to investigate the interrelationships among the proposed antecedents and digital piracy intentions. The model was tested with 268 high school students, 610 undergraduate students and 406 adults. Latent variables of interest were derived from the recent literature on piracy, which were facilitating conditions, optimism bias, previous experiences, prosecution risk, current habits, attitudes towards digital piracy and behavioral intention to conduct piracy. The model revealed a positive relationship between facilitating conditions and optimism bias. Optimism bias and prior experiences had a positive relationship with current digital piracy habits, whereas prosecution risk had a decreasing influence on these habits. Relationships among piracy habits, attitudes and intentions were significant as well. The structural equation model revealed acceptable and consistent fit values across three samples. Findings maintain that further research may resort to the assumptions of the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Theory of Reasoned Action to explain the nature of behavioral intentions towards digital piracy and eliminate undesirable piracy acts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Poverty and inequality undoubtedly remain substantial challenges to economic and human developments amid growing emphasis on intellectual property rights (IPRs) (with recent advances in information and communication technology (ICTs)) and good governance. In the first empirical study on the incidence of piracy on inequality in Africa, the purpose of this paper is to examine how a plethora of factors (IPRs laws, education and ICTs and government quality) are instrumental in the piracy-inequality nexus. Design/methodology/approach – Two-stage least squares estimation approaches are applied in which piracy is instrumented with IPRs regimes (treaties), education and ICTs and government quality dynamics. Findings – The main finding suggests that, software piracy is good for the poor as it has a positive income-redistributive effect; consistent with economic and cultural considerations from recent literature. ICTs and education (dissemination of knowledge) are instrumental in this positive redistributive effect, while good governance mitigates inequality beyond the piracy channel. Practical implications – As a policy implication, in the adoption IPRs, sampled countries should take account of the role less stringent IPRs regimes play on income-redistribution through software piracy. Collateral benefits include among others, the cheap dissemination of knowledge through ICTs which African countries badly need in their quest to become “knowledge economies.” A caveat, however, is that, too much piracy may decrease incentives to innovate. Hence, the need to adopt tighter IPRs regimes in tandem with increasing income-equality. Originality/value – It is the first empirical assessment of the incidence of piracy on inequality in Africa: a continent with stubbornly high poverty and inequality rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital rights management is mainly about license management. Take software licensing as an example. A software license can be assigned to a user, a group of users, or an organization. To protect the copyright against software piracy, a software license is usually bound to the IP of the device or the identity of user. When a user wants to use a software product lawfully on multiple devices he owns, he has to purchase multiple licenses. We consider a scenario of software licensing where upon receiving a software license, the user can legally create a bounded number of licenses for his own devices. Our system is based on a novel chameleon function which is featured with n -time trapdoors. By using this feature, we can construct a secure software licensing system, called "controllable n -time software licensing system". We formally prove that our software licenses are unforgeable, thanks to the collision resistance and indistinguishability feature of the proposed chameleon hash. We also provide the experimental results to demonstrate the computational efficiency of our system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we consider the problem of detecting software that has been pirated and modified. We analyze a variety of detection techniques that have been previously studied in the context of malware detection. For each technique, we empirically determine the detection rate as a function of the degree of modification of the original code. We show that the code must by substantially modified before we fail to reliably distinguish it, and we show that our results offer a significant improvement over previous related work. Our approach can be applied retroactively to existing software and does not require access to the source code, and hence it is both practical and effective. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper develops an optimization model for pricing a monopolistic application software in the presence of piracy. The purpose is raising revenue produced by product’s sale with determining prices in a price skimming strategy and minimizing amount of piracy. The model is a multifunctional price skimming optimization with simplex method which accompanied by a deterministic method for calculating time intervals of each segment. A linear function is used to describe demand of each segment. In addition, a linear piracy function is proposed to make piracy a dynamic parameter. The model has the ability to apply penetration pricing and controlling market share. Rough estimates of Windows 7 sale’s parameters are used to apply in the model. Optimizing case of Windows 7 is resulted in 7.3 percent increase in revenue while value of net market share is virtually constant. Therefore, the developed model demonstrates its competence in optimizing revenue by determining prices with presence of piracy. Results of the research show that to tackle piracy, range of price skimming must be decreased in a way that highest price need to be intensely reduced while lowest one must be slightly reduced. The benefit of using this strategy, is incurring lowest revenue loss due to piracy. The Effects of an escalation in piracy on proposed optimization model include increase in number of sale, demand, selling portion, market share, and decrease in price, price difference between segments, and revenue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]