TechLahore

Software piracy is a no-no!

On the eve of Dec 31st, 2007 I was writing TechLahore’s predictions for 2008, many of which have come to pass. One of the items I listed was that piracy in Pakistan is on its way to becoming extinct… and pretty quickly too. While domestic piracy is harder to check and in fact, does happen in most countries of the world, what is a real put-off for the software industry is large scale piracy in the commercial realm. Well, corporate software piracy in Pakistan – almost the norm 10 or 15 years ago – is on its way out. And not a moment too soon, as Pakistan’s software industry is showing strong growth at 50% a year. It needs all the local demand it can get.

The Daily Times carries a story about two rather silly whitebox PC assembly shops that were pirating copies of Windows and installing on their customers’ systems. The police shut their operations down and arrested them. Microsoft Pakistan – a key sponsor of the BSA – has made sure everyone hears about this. Their Pakistan head, Salman Siddiqui, transformed this relatively minor incident into a press event. We all know what they’re trying to do, and we don’t blame them. At least this forces people to go legal, even it means adopting open source.

Read on for an extract and a link to the story.

Police arrest 2 unauthorised computer dealers

Staff Report

LAHORE: A Lahore police team has arrested two unauthorised computer dealers for installing pirated software in computer hard drives in the Cantonment, according to a statement issued by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) on Tuesday.

The arrests were a part of the government’s campaign to crack down on illegal software vendors. During the raid, the police also confiscated 389 pirated CDs and three computers containing versions of popular computer softwares.

Software: Microsoft Pakistan Software Manager Salman Siddiqui said, “Pakistan has an 84% software piracy rate, which has become an obstacle for the local Information Technology (IT) sector. Due to the high piracy rate, Pakistan has had to suffer a loss of Rs 125 million in 2007.”
[...]

He said that a strong regime against piracy could be a way of attracting foreign investment and promoting entrepreneurs towards the IT sector. Aly Harakeh said, “Software pirates discourage computer programmers, resulting in a lack of investment in the local economy. They cause huge losses to the national exchequer by restricting software exports, evading taxes and reducing the number of new jobs.”

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