300 Business Entities Targeted for Use of Unlicensed Software.

Over 65 percent of complaints received by Business Software Alliance (BSA) against illegal use of unlicensed software in the first half of the year are targeted at the business entities located in Taoyuan area.  BSA recently worked with investigation authority to conduct a raid and found one manufacturer located in Tayuan Industrial Park suspected of installing many kinds of pirated well-known software programs, and the estimated value thereof amounts to NTD4 million.

  Precedents show that the responsible person and employees of a business entity who are indicted on charge of infringement by using unauthorized software should receive criminal penalty, and in addition thereto, pay an astonishing amount of damages that may come to several ten million New Taiwan Dollars. 

  Taiwan’s software piracy rate stood at 39% for the third consecutive year in 2008, the lowest rate of its own and the third-lowest figure in Asia after Japan (21%) and Singapore (36%), according to a report released by the International Data Corporation’s (IDC).  The falling piracy rate, however, is opposed to the huge amount above USD0.2 billion (NTD6.45 billion) in estimated revenue losses due to piracy. 

  The BSA indicates that most of the complaints in the past five years had been filed against the manufacturers, trading companies, and mass media firms located in Taipei and Taoyuan County, comprising more than 1000 of them received in the first half of year 2009.  In the 300 business entities targeted, 190 out of them are manufacturers located in Taoyuan area, representing a high 65 percent.  (2009.07) 
/CCS