Countering software piracy

Kamal Ahmed is the Country GM, Microsoft Pakistan. Previously, he served as the VP & Managing Director at Nortel in Pakistan. He shares his views about software piracy and licensing issues with Technology Times

What is software piracy?

Kamal Ahmed:In its most general terms, software piracy can be considered as the act whereby software retailer creates copies of genuine software and spreads it into the market for his own profits. Software piracy is a serious offence and results in financial losses for licensed software retailers /manufacturers and harms the government in terms of loss through tax revenues. In short, it creates a chain of economic losses affecting the software manufacturers to the government.

What role do Intellectual Property Rights play in the making or breaking of an economy?

For a developing country like Pakistan, IPR plays a very important role as it can be an extremely crucial pillar in the economic development of the country.

Countries worldwide have been constantly developing IPR laws and policies to be able to ensure cleaner and healthier competition.

Similarly for Pakistan, IPR policies need to be developed as a focal enforcement tool so that we can ensure that organizations, retailers and businesses are not being plagued by copyright and counterfeit issues and are able to compete in a more powerful manner on the global front.

Software piracy affects a country in many ways, it affects the genuine software retailer by cutting down their profits due to the sales of pirated software and it affects the country by depriving the government of revenues that could be earned through the sales of licensed software.

What is Microsoft’s stance on the enforcement of policies and laws?

Microsoft has always encouraged clean competition and has always sided against illegal practices such as software piracy. We hold a firm belief that all business and organizations should adhere to the given IPR laws and policies so as to maintain a clean flow of business activity within the economy and could help in further developing the growing IT market.

Why Pakistan is specifically highlighted when it comes to software piracy threat?

There are certain elements involved exclusively in the high piracy rate of 86% in 08-09. Firstly, the increase in the use of “high power” broadband which allows for downloading software from different download locations alongwith numerous crack files for them.

Secondly, the use of computers in the country has increased substantially but most of the users do not have the specialized skills in purchasing the original software. This leads these users oftenly to those retailers who deal in selling pirated software.The low economic conditions have also drawn retailers to create pirated software for generating more sales for themselves and impetus to these activities is given with the lack of proper monitoring systems.

Why Pakistan is lagging behind in terms of software development?


I believe that there has been a surge in IT development in Pakistan over the years and the government understands the importance of an IT/software industry for the betterment of an economy. Microsoft has been collaborating with the Government to promote the education and development of IT and computer literacy all over the country.

With the right resources in hand and a focused direction, I am sure that in the near future Pakistan will become one of the top countries in the development of IT and software.

http://www.technologytimes.pk/mag/2011/jan11/supply/countering_software_piracy.php