Felix Ale, Abdullahi Ayegba, Oyekunle Oluwatoyin Victoria and Iruemi Olohimai Juliet
This research work was aimed at investigating some factors responsible for the use of pirated software on computing devices and the possible ways to reducingthe use. The research work adopted qualitative research method (descriptive and explanatory methods), using secondary data such as library and internet sources, including published research works in related research areas. The results show that some of the factors responsible for the use of pirated software in some parts of the world are:availability of pirated software, ease of installation, high cost of licensed software, lack of adequate enforcement of the copyright law, unavailability of the genuine version some software in some countries or locations, etc. It was also found out from the results that some possible ways to stopping or reducing the use of pirated software in the society are restricting the availability of free download software, making the software very affordable to users, applying legal approach, collaboration between software companies and government agencies, software should be easily available and accessible irrespective of location or country, etc. It was concluded from the results that there are several factors responsible for the use of pirated software on the computers or computing devices, but there are some possible solutions to reducing the use of it. It was recommended that software companies should make the price of software very affordable to the users in the society irrespective of the financial strength of the users or prospective users. It was also recommended that a more comprehensive work on this which will involve public inputs like the use of questionnaire or interview be carried out in future.
Computer, Genuine, Piracy, Software