The thing is that I don‘t want a situation in which I‘ll be online and get detected for having a fake license; and my programs will shut down or something. I just want to have the software and to be able use them without any problems (Osaze, web designer).
The comment above was made by an interviewee whose illegal software had previously been detected by anti-piracy systems online. In his attempt to regain access to the software, he lost most of the files in his web design project. His case serves as a good introduction to this section because gives an example of the kinds of legal tensions experienced by some of my participants. The illegality of software piracy in Nigeria and many other countries implies that governments and especially software companies and their agencies are constantly developing new strategies to limit its spread and apprehend software pirates (BSA, 2010, 2011). Here, I focus on the tactics
my respondents adopted to cope with the anti-piracy campaigns of software companies and their agents. I also show how these tactics contribute to the tensions experienced in carrying out new media work in Nigeria – as evidenced by the case of Osaze above.
With regard to the practice of software piracy, Karaganis (2011) observed that small businesses are typically vulnerable to enforcement by software companies and governments because they are ‗often unable to afford operating fully within the licit economy‘ of software. According to findings from a study of piracy in Russia, he noted that ‗a software-compliance audit or a raid could be a business-threatening experience‘ for these firms (p.54). In contrast, larger firms are treated in less hostile terms primarily because of their bargaining power and the higher implications of the threat they carry to discontinue the patronage of certain software. To appease these firms, software companies like Adobe or Microsoft offer discounts or discriminatory pricing as a way to dissuade these firms from adopting open-source or other alternative software (Karaganis, 2011). Karaganis further noted that although a large percentage of their income is from these large firms, software companies continue to carry out enforcement programs against smaller businesses in order to maintain price levels in the market. Thus, small businesses remain at the bottom end of the power structures that support the anti-piracy strategies and campaigns of software companies.
These anti-piracy technologies adopted by software companies were well known to most of my respondents who are included among the small businesses at which they are targeted. It was common knowledge, for instance, that Adobe designed their software in such a way as to require users to activate them before they could function properly. For this, Adobe ensured that a registration or product key was needed to
‗unlock‘ the software before installing it. Also, most of my respondents were aware of software tools called product key generators (also referred to as ‗keygens‘ or ‗cracks‘) which are freely available on the internet and which can be used to illegally ‗unlock‘
licensed and original software. Such practices were discussed openly by some of my interviewees who were able to talk about them on the evidence of their own personal experiences.
Microsoft Office came pre-installed in the laptop when I bought it. For Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and others, I downloaded the trial versions. I got the cracks from a friend. Basically, Adobe software are not free but there are trial versions. So the cracks help to get past the expiry dates of these trial versions (Jeremy, web designer and blogger).
What happens is this: you download the trial versions online and get the serial number somewhere else, like keygens and all that. I used to do that to get my feet wet with the programs (Orlando, web designer).
To prevent the messages from coming up, you need to activate the software. Since there are cracks now available, I go online sometimes to get them for certain softwares, not only Windows (Paul, web designer).
Despite their popularity, these practices are accompanied by a number of risks. One of them, which I highlighted earlier, is the danger associated with unknowingly installing computer viruses. This danger exists because product key generators (or ‗keygens‗) are typically made available on websites which distribute viruses, malware and spyware (that is, software which self-install on computers and can track users‘ internet behaviour) without the user‘s permission. To avoid these perils, one of my participants described how he frequently assembles a database of product keys from various sources in order to unlock different types of software when required. Such practices are not peculiar to Nigeria. They are carried out by software pirates in many parts of the world, including countries like Mexico (Cross, 2011), India (Liang and Sundaram, 2011) and Russia (Sevneva and Karaganis, 2011). Indeed, the global proliferation of software piracy especially through the internet (Coleman, 2010) has led software companies to set up anti-piracy campaigns aimed at limiting the illegal circulation of their products.
Companies like Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft which have been mostly affected by the surge in piracy (BSA, 2010; Karaganis, 2011) have deployed various technologies such as copy-protected discs and different forms of digital rights management (DRM).
The function of DRM systems is to verify software by requiring users to connect to a remote server containing the DRM application. For example, in 2005 Microsoft developed the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) tool with which computers connected to the internet were programmed to verify whether operating systems were properly licensed. Although these checks complicated the process of copying, they were still easily bypassed by software pirates (Fisher, 2007). However, one drawback of subverting these anti-piracy systems is that the software in question ceases to be updatable through the internet. This presented a challenge for some of my respondents who found it difficult to work online without being detected. Since their work relied heavily on the internet, they had to devise innovative ways to overcome this challenge.
As one of them explained:
So far, there has been no need for me to upgrade my software. But to prevent automatic updates, the technique I use is to close all the applications whenever I‘m connected to the Internet. So, I use the software on my laptop only when I am not working on the Internet and when I need to get on the Internet, I make sure that all of them are closed (Desmond, new media marketer).
The only thing you have to do is make sure not to go online at a certain period or you just stay quiet (Shola, web designer).
Nevertheless, there is always the danger of being detected.
It happens sometimes. Especially when you‘re working online. First of all it was with Windows. The moment Microsoft detects that your OS is not genuine, you‘ll have problems carrying out updates and other things online. [...] So what I do is to reformat.
That‘s the only way. (Paul, web designer)
Reformatting (which Paul describes as ‗the only way‘) refers to the act of deleting all data, programs and available memory from a computer and reinstalling all over. It is a tedious and potentially time-consuming process which typically requires carefully backing up one‘s system to ensure that valuable data is not lost. Despite the
inconveniences it causes, reformatting was one of the ways by which some of my respondents like Paul were able to resist the efforts made by the software companies to safeguard their intellectual property as well as their profits.
The anti-piracy schemes of software companies have also gone beyond methods based on copy-protection or DRM. From the early 2000s in Nigeria, measures against piracy have been instigated by software firms like Microsoft who, with the assistance of government-backed enforcement agencies, began to organize raids of shops to dispose of illegal software (Crawford, 2009). Agents of Microsoft and Adobe have also been authorized by the government to verify the presence of legal software installations in public and private organizations. Such legal steps taken by software companies along with technological strategies aimed at restricting the unlicensed usage of their products had an effect on some of my interviewees. For some, it was a reason to reflect on the possibility of purchasing licensed software. As some of them commented:
Well, we‘re working on getting or buying the genuine software because we‘re aware that Adobe is getting strict. [...] For Adobe software, we know that one has to have an Adobe ID and a license from them. We‘re working on that and actually started about five months ago. We‘re also thinking about getting Macs in the office and we know that it will be difficult to get software for those in Nigeria. The only option for that will be to buy the software (Melvin, web developer).
I remembered there was a time when Microsoft came to Lagos and they were arresting people, I remembered my dad was in Ibadan then and he had an original version.
Right from time I‘ve always known that you get softwares cheaper in Lagos, but later on I realized that they were illegal and Microsoft doesn‘t like that because it‘s not making any money for them (Shola, web designer).
I would like to suggest that comments like the ones above are the result of the legal tensions that arise from using pirated software. These tensions are manifested when people have to make a choice between the continued use of pirated software (with its concomitant risks and inconveniences) and the economic strain of acquiring licensed
software. It was obvious from my research that the challenges of dealing with anti-piracy contributed to the attitude of some of my respondents towards pirated software.
As Paul (the web designer who reformatted his computer), admitted:
With all this I try to ensure that, when I get a new laptop, the Windows OS that comes with it is genuine so that I don‘t have to reformat it.
These legal and occupational tensions in the experiences of my research participants clearly demonstrate that precariousness of software practice among my respondents.
However, their reaction to software piracy was not only shaped by external factors such as anti-piracy laws (―will I get caught?‖) and occupational concerns (―will the software work?‖). My findings revealed that some of my research participants were also aware of the ethical implications of using pirated software. I engage with this topic in the next and final section.