Imagine that a store owner offered to let you break into their software store, turned off all the alarms so that you could enter undetected, held the doors wide open, and allowed you to take whatever you wanted. This situation is faced by most computer owners every day, not necessarily in this form, but in the through the crime of software piracy. Software piracy is the unauthorized duplication and or distribution of copyrighted programs. There would only be a select group who would not be tempted by the prospect of basically free software, most of those who are offered this kind of goods either accept them or are unaware that they are not legitimate. No matter how this crime is conducted, it is estimated that this sort of crime costs the world approximately 13 billion dollars annually.
             Software piracy became popular through the use of Bulletin Boards, which allowed people to dial into other an "underground" archive of pirated software. Around this time, 31/2 Inch discs were also a favorite medium for pirated software.
             The reason behind the widespread popularity of software piracy lies in the cost. Why pay $80 for a piece of software, when you could get it for the price of a blank CD. Software piracy has boomed over recent years, which can most likely be attributed to the drop in the price of CD Writers, which allow the user to copy from one CD to another in less than an hour. During the beginnings of software piracy, the floppy disc was the only feasible method of tangible transportation, and because of the size of most software, many floppy discs were required for storage. This problem has also been eliminated by the CD-writer and CD, which can copy and store approximately 700 megabytes of information, as opposed to 1.44 megabytes.
             This is a question asked by many people, who do not know the damage caused by software piracy. The initial problem lies in the producers of the piec
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