SOFTWARE: LICENCED V UNLICENCED

It is very tempting when you arrive at university to use unlicenced, pirated software. After all, it's a lot cheaper, if not free. Everyone else seems to be doing it. No-one gets caught do they? And it's one in the eye for those multinational corporations, who can afford it anyway?

But: "[software piracy is] an act of robbery on the information superhighway. Even though the average person would never consider going into a convenience store and stealing a stick of gum, many have no qualms about stealing thousands of dollars worth of software." fuchsiashockz

So what are the drawbacks of using unlicenced software?

If you intend connecting your computer to the university network, you will almost certainly find that using unlicenced software is against the university's conditions of use and will render you liable to disciplinary action.

Pirated versions of software are often less stable than authentic software and things go wrong more frequently. You will obviously not be able to obtain support from the software copyright holder. It is also very unlikely that your university IT staff will help sort out problems with unlicenced software.

Downloads, upgrades and updates now often require your copy of the software to be validated, so with a pirated version you will miss out on enhancements, innovations and patches that fix bugs in the software. Some update patches do not work correctly with unlicenced software and have been known to render a computer inoperable.

Unlicenced software often opens your computer to attack by viruses, malware and spyware.

Peace of mind:
Apart from the knowledge that your software is illegal, it is worth pointing out that the Ergo warranty on your equipment is invalidated by any fault resulting from the installation and use of unlicenced software.

Finally, one of the ironies of the widespread use of pirated software in universities and colleges is that many students will go on after graduating to enter the very economy they are defrauding.

All Ergo computers are delivered with a fully-licenced version of the Microsoft^® Windows operating system. Whatever other optional software is installed at time of delivery is also fully licenced.