November 21, 2002	Thursday	Ramazan 15, 1423

LAHORE, Nov 20: The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has warned all the companies to get their software licensed by December 10, otherwise legal action will be initiated against the infringers of the copyright law.

“BSA has halted its enforcement activity in Pakistan and given the users and sellers of pirated software 30-day period to become legally compliant,” BSA director (Middle East) Al Redha told a seminar held here on Tuesday.

BSA is a group formed by world’s leading software developers to check piracy and promote the growth of the software industry through its international public policy, education, and enforcement programmes in 65 countries in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The BSA member companies, including Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft and Sysmantee, have announced special offers — 30-90 per cent discounts on their products till December 10 — to help the Pakistani corporate sector acquire legal software.

The concessions follow a two-month police assisted raids against the users and sellers of illegal software in which 11 persons were arrested and criminally charged for violating the copyright law.

Al Redha said it was unfair for the companies to use pirated software and make money out of it. “Software is intellectual property of a person or a company who spends money and time to create the computer programmes. Software piracy also affects the country’s economy in the shape of lost revenues besides the future of Information Technology in any country depends on how it respects and enforces the copyright law.”

He warned that BSA was not only concentrating on big companies. “Rather, everyone who breaks the software copyright law may be a target of the BSA.”