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End User License Agreements, User Datagram Protocol, Distributed software and License key management

Today the software technologies have evolved it to the extent that now a customer can have free and open source software available in the market. But with this evolution the menace of software piracy has also evolved. Unlike other things a customer purchases, the software applications and fonts bought don't belong to the specified user. Instead, the customer becomes a licensed user — means the customer purchases the right to use the software on a single computer, and can't put copies on other machines or pass that software along to colleagues. Software piracy is the illegal distribution and/or reproduction of software applications for business or personal use. Whether software piracy is deliberate or not, it is still illegal and punishable by law. The major reasons of piracy include the high cost of software and the rigid licensing structure which is becoming even less popular due to inefficient software utilization. Various software companies are inclined towards the research of techniques to handle this problem of piracy. Many defense mechanisms have been devised till date but the hobbyists or the black market leaders (so called “software pirates”) have always found a way out of it. This paper identifies the types of piracies and licensing mechanisms along with the flaws in the existing defense mechanisms and examines social and technical challenges associated with handling software piracy prevention. The goal of this paper is to design, implement and empirically evaluate a comprehensive framework for software piracy prevention and optimal utilization of the software.