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Thursday, January 13, 2005
Microsoft: Software piracy brings losses in jobs, investments for RP
USING software you did not pay for, or pirated software, could cost someone else in the country his job.
This was the message given by Microsoft Philippines’ Eric Rivas during a roundtable discussion on intellectual property (IP) protection where he linked piracy to low investment rates.
For every $1 in software revenue generated in the country, $2 is generated in local information technology service revenues, he told IP stakeholders at the Cebu City Marriott Hotel.
According to the Microsoft official, software revenues contributed P23 billion to the country’s economy in 2003.
“Software also makes other industries more productive, and it creates high-wage skilled jobs” that now employ over 50,000 people in the country, he added.
Correlation
Rivas urged Filipinos to buy software legally, saying that a few months ago, a study by the UP School of Economics confirmed the negative correlation between software piracy and investments.
“Investments drop when piracy rates go up,” Rivas said.
The software piracy rate in the Philippines was at 72 percent in 2003, resulting in losses of P3 billion for the industry, according to Tarun Sawney, director for anti-piracy in Asia of Business Software Alliance (BSA).
The BSA is a non-profit international association of the world’s leading software manufacturers, including Microsoft, Symantec and Adobe.
For those who think it is okay to steal from Microsoft because its founder, Bill Gates, is the world’s richest man anyway, Rivas said buying software legally also spreads economic benefits to other people.
“Our partners averaged $8 in revenue for every $1 in Microsoft revenue,” he said.
Microsoft has over 1,600 partners and resellers in the Philippines.
Wilson Ng of Ng Khai Development Corp. reported some progress in the reduction of software piracy from the dealers’ end.
He said many members of the Association of Computer Businesses of the Philippines-Cebu chapter are no longer installing free copies of software in the computers they sell to their clients.
Protect
During the roundtable discussion, local software developers inquired about how they might protect their own creations.
Mike Jurado, president of the Cebu Software Industry Association, asked whether the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) in Manila had the technical capability to accept patents for software.
Andrew Ong of Ong Villamor Fabiosa law firm, otherwise known as IPRotect Cebu, replied that the IPO already started accepting patent registration for software starting last year.
In fact, his law firm is representing some firms in Cebu, he said. (CTL)
(January 13, 2005 issue)
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