Karachi Police arrests Computer seller for copying pirated software
Pakistan Times National News Desk

KARACHI: The police here in New Town arrested a computer seller for copying pirated software on new machines and confiscated all 1229 unlicensed CDs to protect intellectual property rights of the computer programmers.

“This and past many actions should show that BSA is serious and consistent in enforcing the protection of software copyright, under its nationwide campaign to clean piracy,” said Al Redha, Co- Chairman, Business Software Alliance (BSA) in a press statement issued here on Friday.

Since its formation in 1988, BSA has brought thousands of actions worldwide against organizations that have violated law. These include action against software revellers, dealers, counterfeit producers and end-user organizations.

“A criminal case has been registered against the accused in the latest raid, while all the three computers loaded with unauthorized software were also seized” said Al Redha.

He said the police was assisted by a BSA’s technical team in revealing this hidden crime, which found the hard disks of the seized computers were loaded with many pirated computer programmes including PhotoShop, AutoCAD, MS Office, MS Windows and Norton AntiDesk, Microsoft and Symantec, which are spending huge amount of money on research and development to produce latest computer programmes, Al Redha pointed out.

He cautioned that more enforcement actions are planned and has asked all computer dealers and users to take immediate steps for using licensed software.’

Appreciating the police officials, he said, “This action would help improve Pakistan’s reputation as a safe country to attract foreign investment in the IT sector.”

From his personal experience of other regional countries he stated: “the improvement in respect for intellectual property would create positive effects on Pakistan’s economy by generating increased revenues and job opportunities.”

Al Redha said the western countries have developed their IT industries by checking the software piracy, but Paksitan with 82% piracy rate has a long way to go. The BSA’s worldwide member include such computer giants as Adobe, Apple Computer, Autodesk, Compaq, Corel corporation, IBM, Intel, Lotus Development, macromedia, Microsoft, Novell and Symantec.●