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New copyright law fails to curb software piracy

The loss on account of piracy to the Indian software industry has gone up to Rs 5.45 billion in 1996-97 from Rs 5 billion in 1995-96.

National Association of Software and Service Companies Executive Director Dewang Mehta has said that the piracy rate has declined from a level of 89 per cent in 1992.

Mehta claims that the losses to the software companies are mounting despite a fall in the rate of piracy as the volume of pirated software in use has gone up.

He is, however, positive that piracy rates will come down due to the new stricter copyright laws. Mehta said NASSCOM expects India to have the least piracy rate in the world by the 2000.

The piracy rate is arrived at by taking into account the total number of personal computers sold in a year as against the software sold in the same year.

On an average, Mehta said, every PC is expected to buy two software packages including an operating system.

Piracy rate is the highest in China and Russia, at the levels of 96 per cent and 91 per cent respectively. In most Asian countries too the software piracy rates are ruling high.

In Thailand and Malaysia, the rate of piracy is as high as 80 per cent and in Korea, it is 70 per cent. In an attempt to help chief executives and EDP managers to audit use of pirated software, NASSCOM has launched NASSKIT-Software Audit Resource Kit.

NASSKIT, developed by NASSCOM in association with Business Software Alliance, has been priced at Rs 1,000 per copy.

As an introductory offer, the association is offering 25 per cent discount in the month of September. NASSCOM has prepared 10,000 copies of NASSKIT, 1,000 of which will be shipped to NASSCOM members.

The current version can be run on IBM compatible machines. By the yearend, NASSCOM plans to bring out a Mac version, Mehta said.

- Compiled from the Indian media

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