A contribution to the understanding of illegal copying of software: empirical and analytical evidence against conventional wisdom

The paper analyzes different variables that affect the dynamics among copyrights, illegal copying and software market creation. There is empirical and analytical evidence supporting three major findings. First, proprietary source companies use illegal copying as a source of market creation in the early stages of development of the market. Second, this strategy has positive effects in the software market in the long-term. Third, in presence of an Open Source alternative, proprietary source companies need to use their illegal user base in order to compete better and this strategy becomes optimal.