Heat on fake-software users

Chainarong Charoenchainao, deputy commander of the Electronic Crime Division, said yesterday that in the first 10 months of this year, 247 companies were caught using copied software worth Bt510 million. The average raided company reported annual revenue of Bt231 million. 

Engineering and construction companies were the most frequent target for software piracy at 31 per cent of the raids, following by manufacturers at 22 per cent and machinery producers at 11 per cent. 

About 80 per cent of companies raided so far this year have Thai shareholders, followed by Japanese companies at 5 per cent, Chinese companies at 4 per cent and a variety of shareholders from other countries at 11 per cent. Electronic Crime police this year have set an arrest target of about 30 per cent for next year, of which 70 per cent was expected to be corporations and 30 per cent retailers.

The agency will cooperate with the Technology Crime Suppression Division to use digital forensics and IP address traffice to investigate software piracy and cybercrime to reduce software piracy and seek the removal of Thailand from the United States Trade Representative’s Priority Watch List, which includes potential trade penalties for unaddressed violations of intellectual property rights.

The government should promote open source software as alternative for copyrighted software and develop ICT expertise to create an innovative industry and add value to the economy as a whole, he said.

The owner of Pantip Plaza has agreed to order IT shops to sell only copyrighted software to customers in 2015.

However, the software piracy rate in Thailand in 2010 was 72 per cent with a value of Bt26.4 billion. The agency will negotiate with partners to launch a campaign to continue bringing down the software piracy rate in the country.