An Empirical Study on Factors Driving the Copyright and Piracy Issues in The Indian Software Industry

ABSTRACT

Indian software companies like Infosys, Wipro, and Tata Consultancy Services propelled the Indian software industry and the economy into global view. As the industry grew, software piracy also grew, at a greater rate in a developing country like India. This resulted in huge losses to software development companies as they were denied revenues they well deserved. Software pirates evade tax and the economy altogether suffers due to software piracy. The paper aims to find out the most important factor that affects the software copyright infringement in the Indian software industry by reviewing various research studies undertaken on software piracy happening world-wide and in India. On the basis of concept development based on the literature review, 40 variables found relevant for the current study form the basis of the questionnaire. Multi-variate factor analysis is employed to find the concealed factors by looking for underlying unobservable variables that are reflected in the observed variables. It is concluded that market dynamics play the biggest role in software piracy in India and relevant recommendations given.

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