BSA advises Cos to follow Pak software laws
KARACHI- Business Software Alliance (BSA) has announced it would not initiate any enforcement activity against pirated software users during the next 30 days, ending on 30 day period, ending December 11, 2002 and urged all companies to use this period to become fully compliant with Pakistan’s copyright laws.
‘During the next 30 days, BSA will focus on creating awareness of the software copyright laws’, said Al-Redha, Regional Director, BSA, Middle East at a Press conference here on November 4, 2002.
This follows a two-month sweep of police assisted raids against the users and sellers of illegal software throughout the country in which, 11 persons were arrested and criminally charged for violating Pakistan’s copyright laws.
‘This will provide the companies an opportunity to license their software without facing any penalties, however, BSA will continue sending individual communications to the companies to ensure that only legal software is being used on their premises’, he said. ‘We urge all the companies to take these communications seriously, so that they may not run into the same problems that are currently being faced by those companies which were raided in the last couple of months’.
Al-Redha has announced a Rs. 350,000 reward for reporters and students who participate in the article writing competition on the topic ‘Great Opportunity Campaign’. The competition is open to all the students and members of print and electronic media throughout the country.
The aim of the competition is to raise awareness in the corporate world about the importance of intellectual property rights and how legal software can benefit Pakistan. There will be three prizes in each of the two categories amounting to Rs. 100,000, Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 25,000.
The articles should be at least 1,000 words in length. For the print media people to participate, the entries must be published in some newspaper or magazine, while the students can send their entries directly. A copy of the published or broadcast material must be submitted.
The winners will be those participants who, in the opinion of the competition jury carried out the best campaign during the competition period to raise awareness of the harm that software piracy does to Pakistan. The results will be announced around January 31, 2003 and the winners will be notified on their given addresses.
Source: The Nation
Date:11/5/2002
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