The Domestic Trade, Cooperative and Consumerism Ministry seized RM794,300 worth of pirated software from a private institution of higher learning in Kota Kemuning, Selangor, on Thursday.
The ministry’s Enforcement Division director general, Mohd Roslan Mahayudin, said it was the first educational institution to be investigated under the Copyrights Act 1997.
“Our officers found 58 copies of infringing software installed in eight computers in school’s administrative office computers,” he said, adding that the computers, worth an estimated RM 24,000, were also seized.
He told a news conference Monday that the ministry’s officers also raided an IT solutions provider based in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday and seized 74 copies of of pirated software worth about RM 125,800 installed in eight computers worth around RM 21,000.
Among the software seized in both raids were different versions of programmes from Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft and Solidworks.
He said that so far this year the ministry had raided 30 companies suspected of using pirated software in business and seized 178 computers, 2,106 copies of pirated or unlicensed software with a total of RM 7.6 million.
Asked whether the ministry was only focusing on the end-user instead of the source and manufacturers of the pirated software, Roslan said his officers were still gunning for the manufacturers and had raided two pirated software factories in March and May this year.
Business Software Alliance Asia Pacific Anti-Piracy senior director Tarun Sawney, who was present at the news conference, said that software piracy was different from other forms of piracy like music- and movie-based piracy in that the source was the company using the pirated software and not the factory.
He lauded the Malaysian government for its commitment to protecting intellectual property rights in Malaysia as the 30 cases filed by the ministry was the highest in comparison to the rest of Asia.
“The regional average in Asia Pacific for piracy is around 61 per cent whereas Malaysia only has a 59 per cent piracy rate, which is two per cent lower than the rest of the region.
“Also, over the last four to five years, the piracy rate for software has never gone up, it either stays the same or has gone down.
“This is an encouraging sign for our industry. The work being done by the ministry and the education are having good effect among the companies,” he said.
He added that even though the piracy rate had gone down, the revenue losses for software developers might continue to rise because of the large number of computers with unlicensed software in the market.
“When there’s less piracy, people tend to buy more computers. For instance, at 59 per cent piracy, people might buy around 100 computers but if the piracy rate decreases by 2 per cent to around 57 per cent, people might buy around 120 computers with unlicensed software, translating into greater revenue losses,” said Sawney
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