Although the roots of piracy go as far as 102 BC the true sea pirates golden age was between the time periods of the very late 1600's and the year of 1923 when almost all pirates suddenly disappeared. Pirates attacked the Romans as early as 100 BC. This was not as rough as the future pirates would be, but the idealism of piracy was present. The so-called piracy's golden age started in

Software Publishers' Association. "Software Use and the Law". http://www.spa.org/piracy/homepage.html: November 20, 1996.

This statement been said, "Piracy could never be completely gotten rid of." This is a very true statement. It did take a long time, now pirates have set sail again and this time in cyberspace (The Internet). Their vessels are no longer ships filled with gunpowder and cannons, but desktop and laptop computers. Software piracy has existed as long as software itself, but it has not had a notable effect before the late1980's. The pirating of software just got easier as hardware became more advanced. The development of the modem has allowed the computer to transmit and receive data. Due to this technological advancement pirates (modern term Hackers) have been able to put pirated software on webpages and websites around cyberspace. These webpages and websites offer the newest and most popular games and programs available for downloading. The downloading and these pages and sites are almost or completely free. This of course is illegal because the game manufacturer has a copyright on the product. The pages or sits are not operated or used by hardened criminals, but youths that just cannot afford the amazingly high priced games and programs. The software companies add to the price of the software because of the losses due to piracy. This then, increases the number of pirates because of the sky rocketing of the prices. Some good has also come out of the pirate webpages and websites; they let people try out the software before actually buying it. Some people (absolutely not all people) commit piracy without even knowing that they are doing something wrong. Young users mostly do this at the ages of nine to fourteen whom innocently copy games from their neighbors, friends, or relatives. Some adults also commit this "innocent" crime just because they do not know anything about computers; they copy a new word processor from their office to take home to use on their personal PC.

Pirate television and radio stations do exist although their number is very small. They are called pirate stations because they are on the air without the authorization from the government because they do not want to pay the registration fees or they broadcast unproved material. They are illegal and are usually cast from a hidden station inside the country's borders or from just outside of the borderline. It became really important in England to offer an alternative to the Monopoly State of the BBC. Sometimes the stations were used to get across information to protesters and to protest against governments and organizations.

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Approximate Word count = 2071
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)