The Irish wing of computer multinational, Microsoft, has employed a team of private investigators to help it curb the multimillion-pound trade in pirated software. The Irish computer industry estimates that piracy cost it £32 million in lost sales last year. Its representative organisations, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Software Publishers Association (SPA), claim that as much as 70 per cent of the software in use in Ireland has been copied illegally. On a European scale, the problem is only worse in Greece.
Microsoft is now working closely with the computer crime unit of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and has enlisted a team of 16 private investigators to assist its sales team in tackling the problem.
Ms Ann Riordan, Microsoft Ireland general manager, told The Irish Times that such was the scale of the problem last year that sales figures for some products were falling.
But as part of a new strategy, the company was now conducting test purchases of products being sold under the Microsoft label. Over the last year, Microsoft has purchased from over 50 resellers in Ireland, and has others under investigation.
In July Microsoft personnel and gardai carried out their first raid on a PC reseller who had been offering unlicensed Microsoft products for sale in Ireland. Under a High Court order, the reseller was required to deliver up any personal computers carrying unlicensed Microsoft software, and documentation relating to the sale of such software. The company has taken several civil actions in 50 cases where it has settled out of court. The sums involved have not been disclosed, but, according to Ms Riordan, are being put back into training the long-term unemployed in software skills.
"I'm happy to say we've now turned that corner," says Ms Ann Riordan.
Mr George Urquhart, general manager of Lotus Development Ireland, declined to comment on the steps being taken by his company to combat software piracy, but said he did not believe the problem was improving.
Mr Norman Wilkinson, director of the Information Society Commission the State-appointed organisation co-ordinating Ireland's advance into the information age said there was no point attracting multinational technology investment to Ireland if its software was being left wide open to piracy in the absence of proper legislation.
The Minister of State for Labour, Trade and Consumer Affairs, Mr Tom Kitt, indicated to the Business Software Alliance last month that his department was preparing new copyright legislation which would address software piracy.
Under existing legislation, a person convicted for software theft is liable to a maximum £1,000 fine, six months in jail or both. There is no provision under the Copyright Act, 1963, for offences to be tried on indictment.
By comparison, in Britain, a person summarily convicted for software theft is liable to a fine of £5,000, six months imprisonment or both. On indictment, an unlimited fine, imprisonment for two years or both may be imposed. At a European level, estimated software piracy has declined in the past five years from an average rate of 77 per cent in 1991 to 43 per cent in 1996. Meanwhile, the Irish software piracy rate is more than twice that of Britain, which at 34 per cent represents the lowest rate of piracy in Europe.
See also page 10
