Software Piracy...Is it a crime ???

[faizanakram99]

Assalamualaikum brothers...!
i want to know what is fatwa about software piracy like using pirated version of windows , MS office and other applications....most of people use pirated softwares here in our city including religous people as they dont know it an act of stealing because no scholar of our state has issued any fatwa about it...!
Many of our saathies install softwares in systems of madaris so that their work may become easier but they and the authorities of madaris dont know it is a pirated software and it cant be used on two processors simultaneously without prior permission of the software maker as most of the software used are microsoft products which are costly and follow EULA (End Users License Agreement)...!
So please if there is any fatwa regarding the issue please post it so that i can forward it to our ulemas and they may issue it publicly so that whole ummat (usually muslims from our state) will stop software piracy...!
Although we can use alternatives like open source which are free like linux (opensuse, ubuntu,etc) as OS (operating systems) and AbiWord as word processors and gimp as image processors but common people unaware of these issues (EULA and GNU, Piracy and legal copying) dont use them preferably ...!

[abuhajira]

The question has been received at the Darul Iftaa as well. InshAllah someone from there will be replying you.