Copyright law

Limitations imposed by copyright

When you buy software, for example, copyright law forbids you from:

• giving a copy to a friend
• making a copy and then selling it
• using the software on a networknetwork: a group of interconnected computers (unless the licencesoftware licence: a legal agreement between the company who published the software and the end user covering areas such as copyright allows it)
• renting the software without the permission of the copyright holder

The law that governs copyright in the UK is called the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Prevention of software piracy

Software companies take many steps to stop software piracypiracy: acquiring, profiting from, using or making changes to copyrighted material without prior permission:

• An agreement between the company that developed the software and the user must be agreed before the software is installed. This is called the license agreement and covers copyright.
• Certain pieces of software require a unique licence key to be entered before the installation will continue.
• Some applications or programsprogram: a list of instructions written in a programming language will only run if the media (CDCompact Disc (CD): used to store data, eg music CD / DVDDigital Versatile Disc (DVD): used to store data, eg a movie) is in the drive.
• Some applications or programs will only run if a special piece of hardwarehardware: the physical components of a computer called a dongledongle: a small piece of hardware that connects to a computer, eg a USB memory stick is plugged into the back of the computer.

The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST)

FAST was founded in 1984 by the softwaresoftware: a general term used to describe an application or a program industry and is now supported by over 1,200 companies. It is a not-for-profit organisation with an aim to prevent software piracypiracy: acquiring, profiting from, using or making changes to copyrighted material without prior permission and has a policy of prosecuting anyone found to be breaching copyrightcopyright: gives the creator of an original piece of work control over its publication, distribution and adaptation law.

FAST also works to educate the public about good software practice and legal requirements.