Pirated software worth $ 2.1 mn seized in India

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

Bangalore, Mar 5: Pirated software worth 2.1 million Dollars were seized in over 200 raids conducted across the country in 2006, Business Software Alliance (BSA), the voice of the world's IT software and hardware industry, announced today.

BSA and its member companies would step up their enforcement actions this year in an effort to bring down the piracy rate, Alliance Vice-President Jeffrey J Hardee, also the Regional Director, Asia-Pacific, said in a release here.

He said ''in over 200 actions that have been conducted by BSA and its member companies in 2006, we had found widespread use and sale of pirated software across Indian cities''. With the high software piracy rate in India, it was important to highlight efforts of the industry in combating piracy through enforcement, he added.

The BSA and its members have carried out raids in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Software piracy was a huge problem that was plaguing many emerging economies and limiting the full potential of the local software industry to a large extent. As per the findings of the BSA-IDC study of 2005, the rate of PC software piracy in 2005 was 72 per cent. According to statistics, the Indian Software industry posted revenue loss of 566 Million dollars in 2005 due to this menace.

Mr Hardee said ''BSA adopts a three-pronged strategy -- spreading awareness on the perils of piracy, training and education of users, including use of specialised tools like software asset management (SAM), and enforcement -- in addressing software piracy around the globe. Enforcement, the last resort, is an important part of the approach as it served to underline the seriousness of the matter.'' Pirated software that had been seized included those from Adobe, Autodesk, McAfee, Microsoft and Symantec.

The BSA maintained a close working relationship with the Government and industry associations in India, including NASSCOM.

According to an economic impact study conducted by IDC, if the piracy rate was reduced by ten points by 2009, India could benefit by an additional 115,000 new IT jobs, an additional 5.9 billion US Dollars pumped into its economy and increased tax revenues of 386 million US Dollars.


UNI

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