KUALA LUMPUR: Looking back to the early 2000’s, Kuala Lumpur was dubbed the haven for pirated software in the country.
In fact, counterfeit operators profited from the hard work of others, in as far as pirated software hotspots in major cities such as Johor Baharu, Ipoh, Melaka and Seremban were concerned.
However, the perserverance of the government and various parties involved in the industry in the last few years, stamped out such activities from threatening the information technology (IT) industry in Malaysia.
The anti-piracy success was proven by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) 19th Annual Global Piracy Study produced
in May (www.bsa.org) which stated Malaysia as recording 55 per cent in the rate of personal computer piracy last year.
The figure published by BSA — a non-profit industry association based in the US and is active in more than 80 countries — showed a decline, as compared to 56 per cent in 2010 and 58 per cent in 2009.
The percentage also showed Malaysia being among the countries with the lowest personal computer piracy software in the Asean region, as compared to Singapore (33 per cent), Brunei (67 per cent), Philippines (70 per cent), Thailand (72 per cent) and Vietnam (81 per cent).
In fact, the figure was also seen as being lower than the average in Asia Pacific, at 60 per cent last year and 2010, and 59 per cent in 2009.
Apart from the BSA study, US trade representative Ron Kirk recently announced that Malaysia had been delisted from countries being observed for infringing intellectual property rights or Special 301 List.
All these translated into software piracy losing its hold in Malaysia but it was not time to celebrate its success in the fight against personal computer software piracy.
BSA senior director Roland Chan said Malaysia needed to implement various continuous measures to ensure piracy continued to be eradicated. –Bernama