Fight for protection

The software industry is rooting for a designated court to track intellectual property rights violations.

As long as Adobe, Autodesk, McAfee, Microsoft, Symantec and other software brands sell for pennies (read pirated versions), the Indian economy will keep losing millions of rupees.

So, what about Intellectual Property (IP) rights? Is having a designated court for IP rights a solution to the problem? "Yes, it is," asserts Jeffrey Hardee, vice president and regional director (Asia-Pacific), Business Software Alliance (BSA). BSA and NASSCOM are pushing hard to create an IP court that would handle all cases related to copyright, patents, trademark, illegal usage of protected content and design protection.

Reasons Hardee, "Every company that plans an offshore initiative in India asks "" 'How are we going to ensure that our intellectual property is protected at an offshore location?'"

Joe Fitzgerald, deputy general counsel and vice president (intellectual property), Symantec, agrees, "The importance of IP protection and the need to control piracy rates is exponentially higher for companies that want to execute core projects offshore, and in companies that need to provide access to classified company data to the offshore location for BPO/call centre initiatives."

An IP court, recommends BSA, should impose criminal penalties for acts that lead to widespread copyright infringement, punishing not only the act of infringement but also the steps leading up to infringement. These would include acquiring in-the-clear copies without authorisation or registering for peer-to-peer networks under a false identity to evade prosecution.

Software vendors, on the other hand, would like the IP court to clear the confusion over what consumers are permitted to do with purchased content and clarify the legal uses of content. State laws should not discriminate against online distribution of content, argues Hardee.

"Protectionist laws that favour bricks-and-mortar retailers will only slow the digital transition and encourage users to resort to piracy to acquire what they cannot get legally," he feels.

According to an economic impact study conducted by IDC, if the present piracy rate of 73 per cent in India is curtailed by 10 points by 2009, India could benefit with an additional 1,15,000 new IT jobs, an additional $5.9 billion pumped into its economy and increased tax revenues of $386 million.

BSA did more than 200 raids in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Hyderabad. But only a minuscule of these could be framed under the existing legal framework. Icon Multimedia Systems, a company that was allegedly engaged in the illegal distribution of pirated products of Microsoft and Avid Technology, was brought under the legal net by BSA.

The modus operandi for Icon Multimedia was to install the unlicensed software on to the computers, which it sold to its customers. Quick and cheap.

"According to the statistics, the domestic software industry has been bleeding losses of over $566 million, thanks to the piracy nexus of such companies," laments Hardee.

Delhi High Court has granted an ex-parte interim injunction restraining Icon Multimedia from copying/reproducing, selling or loading on hard disks any pirated/unlicensed version of Microsoft and Avid Technology software.

BSA reportedly seized software worth around $2.1 million in 2006, a figure that is expected to be stronger in 2007. "Symantec will support BSA to step up their enforcement actions in 2007 to bring down piracy rates in the Indian market, which is a huge dent for anti-virus software providers like us," confirms Fitzgerald.

Until recently, unauthorised copying of software required physical exchange of floppy disks, compact discs or other portable media. "With Internet piracy rates touching new peaks, copyrighted products can move from computer to computer with no hard media transaction and little risk of detection," worries Hardee.

This is compounded by the fact that Internet users in India will total more than 100 million by 2007-08, according to Internet and Mobile Association of India. A dedicated task force coupled with a trained legal fraternity to protect the violation of IP rights can be the only logical answer to curb an astounding 73 per cent piracy rate in India and save millions of rupees.