Your Key to Avoiding Pirated Products
Piracy in the U.S. today
Recent studies conducted for the BSA have found that the piracy rate in the U.S. is approximately 28% Most prevalent forms of piracy
Counterfeit products – disks, manuals, certificates of authenticity (COAs) Hard disk loaded systems (providing software loaded on systems without the accompanying disk, manual, and COA)
Why worry about running pirated software?
Counterfeit software may contain viruses or missing code You are running software without licenses, and may be subject to penalties and fines You’ve paid money for a product that is basically of no value – you’ve purchased a license but received nothing You won’t be able to upgrade with those licenses, and you may be ineligible to get service packs
How customers usually acquire counterfeit software
Buying software at prices that are not competitive with other resellers, or are “too good to be true.” Buying from deals on the Internet (i.e. Windows for $50), or from auction sites Buying “stand alone” components, thinking they are of value (i.e. COAs, manuals, & disks)
What you will probably get when you buy $50 Windows from spam offerings
Would you know counterfeit product if you had it?
Probably not, at least not initially – counterfeiters add in features such as the “genuine” language and holograms in order to fool people into purchasing their products. This is a counterfeit COA.
Genuine v. Counterfeit Edge to Edge Products
Genuine
Counterfeit