EDITORIAL Software trouble
- Published: 14/11/2009 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: News
Police action to enforce intellectual property laws has been stepped up this month and several companies have been penalised for use of pirated software. As a result some businesses have become marginally less profitable after the imposition of heavy fines, an expense that could easily have been avoided.
Only they know why they failed to comply with the advance warnings to install genuine, licensed software ahead of the raids. Desperate cost-cutting measures because of the economic slowdown do not appear to have been the cause and industry observers blame greed and negligence. In one raid, pirated design software was confiscated from the engineering division of a multinational firm with local assets of more than 200 million baht. Legitimate software would have cost less than 30,000 baht. Other interior design and architecture firms have been targeted along with the construction and manufacturing sectors.
Software piracy - or any piracy, for that matter - makes little economic sense nowadays and gives others the impression we are a light-fingered nation of copycats, lacking in conscience and creativity. In one case earlier this year, the Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court awarded a maker of design and engineering software 1.8 million baht in damages plus interest. The decision was based on evidence that the defendant had infringed the software developer's copyright. The 100% Thai-owned company at fault had a registered capital of 150 million baht and annual revenue of 250 million baht. This followed another case in January which resulted in an award by the court of 3.5 million baht against an Ayutthaya-based manufacturer. Other cases are frequently settled out of court.
There is a misconception that piracy is essentially a victimless crime. But theft always has a victim. An actor, singer or musician whose work is stolen is a victim, and the Thai or foreign software engineer whose work is copied without recompense eventually loses his livelihood or spends years tied up in court. What is rightfully theirs goes into the pockets of criminal gangs.
At the bottom of this slippery slope is the most sinister and dangerous form of piracy. This is the counterfeiting of ordinary medicines which has become a growth industry with truly horrific results. An extreme example was the pharmacist in the United States who was convicted of adulterating and counterfeiting cancer treatment drugs so he could enrich himself by increasing the suffering of cancer victims. He was caught, but arrest rates in our part of the world are disturbingly low.
The Food and Drug Administration periodically issues warnings against buying medicines from internet-based pharmacies and warns that such drugs are, in all likelihood, fake and little more than powdered glucose. That is true, but the agency overlooks one very important aspect in all this. It neglects to mention that potential customers do not need to hunt down obscure internet sites in other countries to find adulterated drugs. They are already being peddled through a few dishonest or duped pharmacies and clinics throughout the region.
The World Health Organisation believes the problem is such a big one that at least 25% of prescription medicines sold in the developing world are fake, with the counterfeiting of drugs to combat malaria the most dangerous because adulteration of active ingredients has created resistance to new first-line treatments. This is an issue that justifies as much attention as the authorities are giving to pirated software. Perhaps more, as lives are being put at risk.
