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Taiwan grabs software piracy by the tail ...

Software piracy has dropped by 10 percent in Taiwan -- the biggest improvement globally last year -- due to improved enforcement and increased public awareness, software industry and government officials announced yesterday.

Figures for last year released by the Business Software Alliance show that Taiwan's piracy rate is now 43 percent compared with 53 percent the previous year.

The piracy rate contrasts the demand for software against the actual number of legal software packages sold in each country.

"Last year was the government's intellectual property rights [IPR] action year and the improvement in the piracy rate is a direct result of their increased manpower and police cooperation to fight pirates," Sung Hong-ti (宋紅媞), chairwoman of the Taiwan branch of the Business Software Alliance, told the Taipei Times yesterday.

"We also worked together with the government on an education campaign to remind corporate users to use legal software. We gave them a 45-day grace period to buy legal software last year and in that period the Taiwanese became highly aware of IPR issues," she said.

Taiwan now ranks No. 4 in the software anti-piracy stakes in the Asia-Pacific region after New Zealand, Japan and Australia. The nation has jumped from No. 7 in 2001, surpassing South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The nation ranks 26th globally, up from 38th in 2001.

The country's No. 2 IPR man lapped up the news.

"This is definitely good news and it encourages us to work harder this year to improve our enforcement record more," said Jack Lu (盧文祥), deputy director-general of the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Intellectual Property Office.

"The education campaign was a very important factor in reducing the piracy rate -- not only the government campaign but also the BSA campaign and the campaigns of private IPR holders. The campaign is of equal importance as catching counterfeiters," he said.

Lu now plans to beat the global average of 39 percent.

"My personal benchmark will be to reduce the piracy rate below the global average, so we hope we can drop another 4 [percent] or 5 percent this year," Lu said.

The country is bucking the trend in the Asia-Pacific region, which has seen a rise in piracy of 1 percent to 55 percent, making it the worst in the world.

Losses as a result of software piracy in the Asia-Pacific area rose by 16 percent from US$4.72 billion to US$5.48 billion. Meanwhile, losses domestically dropped by 17 percent over the same period, from US$136.7 million in 2001 to US$113.3 million last year.

One tech veteran of Silicon Valley and the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park, who now works for an international law firm in Taipei specializing in intellectual property rights, welcomed the news yesterday, but with reservations.

"Taiwan in the 40s is an improvement as it is approaching the levels of Western Europe and North America in the 20s and 30s," said Steve Hanley, a lawyer with Winkler Partners (博仲法律事務所).

"Public and private enterprises have a great awareness and high compliance rates, but all of us who live in Taiwan know it is very easy to procure pirated material. If we know, why doesn't the government clamp down harder?" he said.

Now that the nation's own software industry is growing, more damage will be felt closer to home so the government may be prompted to act more harshly, Hanley said.

BSA includes some leading names among its membership, including Microsoft Corp.

"As a member of the BSA, we are happy to see the success of Taiwan's battle against software piracy," Eunice Chiou (邱麗孟), general manager of Microsoft Taiwan, said in a statement.

"We are especially happy to see the piracy rate in Taiwan approach the world average. This is significant for Taiwan's goal of developing a knowledge-based economy," she said.

Improving the software piracy rate will give the domestic industry a much-needed shot in the arm, other BSA members said.

"If Taiwan can respect and further protect intellectual property rights, then the software industry will continue to increase its research investments here," said Marvin Chiu (丘立全), general manager of the Taiwan branch of Trend Micro Inc (趨勢科技), the maker of the anti-virus software PC-Cillin.
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