Business seminar on software piracy
Independent resea- rch, released recently at a conference cosponsored
by the Business Software Alliance, the National Intellectual Property
Office, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, and the European Chamber of
Commerce of Sri Lanka, revealed that in 2006 the software piracy rate in
Sri Lanka was a staggering 90 per cent.
According to the IDC, a leading IT, telecom and consumer technology
research firm which conducted the research, nine out of ten software
programs installed on new (personal) computers in Sri Lanka were
unlicensed or obtained illegally through software theft. This is
significantly higher than the 53 per cent piracy rate for the remainder
of the Asia-Pacific region.
It also places Sri Lanka in the bottom six of the 102 countries
reviewed worldwide.
Charge d’ Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, James R. Moore,
welcomed the research: “We share the industry’s concern regarding
extensive software piracy in Sri Lanka. The Embassy continues to provide
technical assistance to help Sri Lanka improve its ability to enforce
its strong intellectual property protection laws. |