Software Licensing Audit
20 Jan 2010
Long enough period when in shop it was possible to buy for 80 roubles a disk with a selection of the programs which total cost makes thousand dollars, has played with all of us a malicious joke.
We have for some reason got used to consider that getting a disk we get all its contents and we can do with it everything that to us will take in head – to use, copy, extend etc.
Meanwhile, the software is object of intellectual property and the copyright and is protected by the law № 3523-1 «About a right protection of programs for electronic computers and databases» and the law № 5351-1 «About the copyright and the adjacent rights». Use of the software by the third parties probably only with the consent of the legal owner. The permission of software developers to use of their products is made out in a kind of “the License agreement» which defines volume of the rights transferred to the user, including the right of use, manufacturing of copies and distribution. When the software is on sale for money, not it actually is on sale, but only the licence for the right of its use. The copyright and the property to the program remains for the developer, in the property of the buyer pass only material carriers on which the program extends (disks).
Use of the software without the corresponding permission is illegal. Article 146 UK «Infringement of the author’s and adjacent rights» provides a number of rather unpleasant punishments for illegal use of objects of the copyright. It or the penalty at the rate to 200,000 roubles or at a rate of wages condemned for the period till 18 months, or obligatory works for the term from 180 till 240 o’clock, or imprisonment for the term up to 2 years (item 2).