Plans To Fight Software Piracy In Singapore

A leading software piracy watchdog plans to fight rising CD-ROM piracy in Singapore by targeting end-users and pushing companies to join a new corporate programme to guard against huge losses in revenue.

We are trying to shift the focus, win the mindset, by giving companies the message that if you are in business, you have to pay for it, Stuart Ong, vice-president of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) said yesterday.

Rising software piracy prompted the BSA to approve plans for a corporate recognition programme in March, where companies sign a code of ethics to comply with the use of legal business software.

 

Members of the BSA would then audit the companys software, which would grant them immunity from a lawsuit if illegal software was later found to be circulating on the premises. Formed in 1988, the BSA represents leading software publishers such as Microsoft, Apple and Lotus Development.

According to the latest available figures, about 58 per cent of software used in Singapore was pirated in 1994. Vietnam has one of the worst rates of piracy, with more than 90 percent of software being fake. Overall, software theft in Asia exceeded $4.3 billion in 1994, about some 29 per cent of the $15.2 billion lost worldwide. Ong said raids on software retailers at shopping complexes around Singapore only affected suppliers and not users. CD-ROMs are becoming the most common method of data storage for sophisticated computers and multimedia equipment.

With the advent of CD-ROMs and availability of compilation CD-ROMs, software piracy has taken a huge jump, Ong said. Consumers had to be dissuaded from buying and using pirated software, which involved vigilance at the corporate level, he said.

In addition to the corporate recognition programme, the BSA has established a hotline to alert against software piracy that has provided useful tip-offs and led to the successful prosecution of numerous retailers and one well-known engineering firm so far, Ong said.

The caller was rewarded with Singapore $5,000 ($3,570) for the tip that led to a successful prosecution of the firm. The firm settled the case by paying S$42,000 in damages and costs and had to purchase original copies of the pirated software to legitimise its operations.

If any of your employees call this hotline (for sabotage), and you have joined this programme, I will call you and say this has happened, Ong said. He noted that efforts by the company to audit its internal software circulation would give it a first round of defence.

Ong said intensifying publicity against offenders should slow the rate of CD-ROM piracy, which has worsened since early 1996 and now exceeds US$45 million in lost revenue for Singapore.

CD-ROM compilations include a series of programmes on one disc and are relatively easy to duplicate. Word-processing programmes, spreadsheets and games are commonly pirated, officials said. The influx of CD-ROMS and increased information technology business in Singapore is expected to worsen its piracy rate in the short-term.

Singapore has adopted stiff penalties for piracy jail terms of up to 36 months and S$180,000 in fines for distributors, but Ong said more had to be done to educate end-users.

We need a stick as well as a carrot, he said, noting that no reputable government office, bank or listed company would want to be subject to raids and bad publicity.