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Fatwa CenterHe got much money from pirated software
Question
I'm Denni Agung Pambudi, 28 years old. If someone with mental disorder searched for illicit income, such as the use of pirated software to make money. He had a traumatic experience that makes him frustration and depretion and it made him unable to pray, though in his heart, so eager to do the praying, but he could not because his traumatic experience makes it difficult to think like normal people. He wears the software is not without a reason, that is due to economic reasons of his family. I would like to ask the money he got from the pirated software. Can he give that money to his parents and not for their own consumption? Then, what is the law if he knew that the actual software is forbidden, but when he did the job, he forgot that he had to replace the software with the original software until he was raising money in large quantities? You know, this is due to his disability in thinking like normal person.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
First of all, it should be noted that among the gravest and greatest sins is to be negligent about the prayer and to be lazy about performing it to the extent that some scholars stated that the person who leaves the prayer out of laziness goes out of the fold of Islam.
Therefore, this person should repent to Allaah and take the initiative to make up for the prayers that he had missed and establish the prayer at its prescribed fixed time.
On the other hand, mental illness does not exempt one from religious obligations as long as he is of sound mind and acts willfully.
As regards the issue of using pirated software, then he has committed the sin of transgressing intellectual property (copyrights) which the Fiqh Committees ruled that it should be respected and that it is forbidden to transgress it and they made its owners entitled to their financial rights and asserted that the transgressor is obliged to pay what is equivalent to these financial rights because of the benefits that he caused its owners to miss and the harm which he caused them.
However, he may make use of the concerned courts and the experienced people in estimating the amount of the financial right of the owner of that software. Then, he should pay that amount which he owes to him if he can deliver it to him even indirectly, otherwise he should give it in charity to the poor and destitute, but he is not permitted to pay this money to his parents unless they are poor while he is not obliged to spend on them.
As regards the remaining amount that he had earned from using those programs, then this is lawful for him and he is not obliged to give it in charity.
Allaah Knows best.
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