SOFTWARE PIRACY
A 100 per cent US-owned multinational manufacturing company in Chon Buri was recently raided and has been charged with software copyright infringement.
The unnamed company allegedly used unlicensed Thai dictionary software and Adobe software in conducting its business, according to a press statement from the Business Software Alliance (BSA). At least 37 of the company's PCs were suspected of containing unlicensed software, said by the BSA to have a total value of 411,600 baht.
The Thai Software Dictionary is a popular product developed by Thai Software Enterprise, a local software development company and a member of the BSA, which specialises in packaged dictionary, translation and accounting software. The product sells for between 180 baht and 1,284 baht.
"Our enforcement team is dedicated to protecting the intellectual property rights of innovators in Thailand. We will make every effort necessary in ensuring that businesses within our jurisdiction adhere to the laws with as many raids as required to bring home the message," said deputy commander of the Economic and Technical Crimes Suppression Division (Ecotec), Pol Col Sarayuth Pooltanya.
BSA Director of Anti-Piracy for Asia Tarun Sawney said in a press statement that this case highlighted the benefits of software asset management and the importance for executives to know exactly what kind of software their staff were using.
"Senior management needs to make sure that employees understand that it is wrong and illegal to use unlicensed software," he said.
Since January, enforcement action against corporate end-user software piracy has been stepped up, with more than 30 companies standing accused of illegal software infringements worth a combined total of 100 million baht.
In April, the Department of Intellectual Property launched a national software intellectual property rights campaign in cooperation with BSA to create further awareness of software copyright issues. Police were supporting the campaign through enforcement against users of illegal software, according to the BSA.
Commenting on the stepping-up of raids this year, BSA spokesperson Siripat Patrangul said that crossing the 100 million baht threshold was a significant achievement.
Referring to the raids, Ecotec deputy commander Pol Col Sarayuth said that his agency would continue to work closely with the BSA to coordinate the flow of information on infringing activity.
Reaching 100 million baht in illegal software infringements demonstrated that the Ecotec police were working hard to track down companies that were violating Thailand's copyright laws, he said, adding "but we have much more work to do to stamp out software piracy."
Before the end of the year Ecotec planned to conduct raids all over Thailand, with dozens of companies short-listed for such raids, according to the BSA statement.
Under Thai copyright law, executives of companies found using pirated software are subject to a fine of between 100,000 and 800,000 baht, or a jail term of six months to four years, or both.
Sawney noted that a BSA campaign, with a free hotline number or reporting through the web site at http://www.bsa.org, had led to a solid response from the public with leads phoned-in between January and June.
"After establishing that the reports were accurate, we passed the information to the police who successfully raided the infringing companies, " he said.
BSA spokesperson Siripat said that apart from supporting government action to stamp out corporate software piracy, the BSA would continue to educate and advise companies of the risks of illegal software, and raise awareness of its impact on the software industry as well as the wider economy.
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