4.+Copyright+and+Law


 * Copyright and Law**

**Ways Of Committing A Crime Under Australia’s Copyright Law**

1. Being in possession of a device that is used to make infringement copies of multimedia 2. Selling infringing copies of multimedia 3. Selling, importing or manufacturing certain circumvention devices, circumvention services and decoders


 * Shareware And Commercial Packages**

There are many reasons why shareware is cheaper than commercial packages. There is no need to spend a few of hundred dollars on a commercial package and finding out the software does not serve its desired intended purpose when shareware can be evaluated and tested in the comfort of one’s home without having to go out and look for the desired commercial package. Commercial packages also included many features that the consumer may not want or need and will think is unnecessary. This is not to say that shareware does not have more than adequate features to meet a user’s needs but commercial packages come with more features than needed than their shareware counterparts. Also shareware achieves a wider distribution and without the costs of having to advertise relieving the creators with fewer marketing expenses. Shareware also ensures feedback from users which in turn helps them improve the software and this results in updates to the software. Because the shareware is not made by large companies with many employers it does not need as many profits so as to support their staff resulting in the cost for production being smaller than if it was made in a big company or organization


 * Technological Development**

One technological development that has reduced software piracy is DRM. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management and it is any type of technology used to impose limitations on the usage of digital content and devices. (Layton) It controls the access to certain information and in this case copyrighted multimedia material. There are a couple of ways in which DRM technology prevents its material from being copyrighted yet these methods do not seem to be able to completely prevent copyright from being breached. DRM was created so that a limit could be put on people copying files and although not everyone then distributes these copies the percentage that does has been increasing over the years. Maybe in the future DRM will be able to ease the practice of piracy more that it has now


 * Is It Right To Copy Software Without The Permission Of The Author?**

No I believe that it is not right to copy software without the permission of the author as they spent a lot of their time and money into designing and developing the software and by people copying the software without acknowledging the author or giving profit to the author then that author does not get the funds needed to continue designing and developing software and cannot improve on the software. Also because of people copying the software the author does not get the credit rightfully due to them for the creating of the software. If the author intended for the software to be copied then they would have made it available to consumers via the internet