KARACHI City police raided five computer shops in Boat Basin and seized 14 new computers and 1509 pirated software CDs for violating intellectual property rights.

The five computer dealers were found to be loading unlicensed software onto the hard disks of the machines they sold. Criminal cases have been registered against all the five accused, said Aly Harakeh, Business Software Alliance (BSA) spokesman for East Mediterranean and Pakistan.

“This enforcement activity demonstrates the continued crackdown against software pirates across the country.”

Law enforcement authorities, police, FIA, and customs, have been undertaking action in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan and Faisalabad and the campaign would be expanded to other cities soon.

All the computer dealers are now required to install legal software onto the computers they sell, to help promote the use of genuine software. This would protect customers and organisations from viruses, malware and spyware, as well as legal liabilities.

Aly Harakeh continued “Software, as intellectual property, is as valuable as any physical property, such as a house or a car. It is for this reason that the punishments under the countrys copyright law include up to three years imprisonment, up to Rs. 200,000 fine, and the seizure of all the equipment used for illegal copying.”

BSA supports the governments efforts to eliminate software piracy by shutting down all the CD manufacturing plants. However continued action against software resellers is still required as, highlighted in the 2007 Global Software Piracy Study, the global software industry suffered a US $48 billion loss due to illegal software.