Effective policies to reduce software piracy in MEA

Dubai: Due to new anti-piracy policies and enforcement efforts, software piracy is expected to drop slightly in many Middle East and African (MEA) countries from 59 per cent last year, industry experts said.

"But on the other hand, increased PC sales in price-sensitive segments [home, education, small-and medium-sized businesses] will push piracy up in other countries," Jozef Gemela, Consulting Director, IDC CEMA, Emerging Markets, told Gulf News.

He added that the econ-omic slowdown has had two effects on software piracy — the most sensitive market segments reduced their spending on IT (which may have a positive impact on piracy); overall price sensitivity of the market increased (and this drives piracy up)

The combined effect of these two factors can be different in different areas.

With 59 per cent piracy rate in 2008, the MEA region is the fourth-largest market for pirated software in the World after Asia-Pacific, Central & Eastern Europe and Latin America. In countries like Iraq, Libya, Nigeria or Zimbabwe the rate of pirated software peaked above 80 per cent in 2008 — in other words, out of 100 software units installed, more than 80 were illegally produced, distributed or sold.

In terms of software piracy, UAE has the lowest rate at 36 per cent. Nevertheless, due to the country's well-developed software market, piracy losses are still very high ($170 million. in 2008). The UAE still lags behind developed economies (US, Japan, part of Western Europe, Australia) where the piracy rates are below 30 per cent.

Compared to the Gulf countries, all countries (except UAE) reach piracy rates between 51 per cent and 62 per cent.

While the other five Gulf countries show a gradual decrease over the last five years, the piracy rate in the UAE increased by 2 per cent between 2005 and 2008, and by one per cent in 2008 compared to 2007 mainly due to rapidly growing installed base of PCs, especially notebooks, in the home sector.

"The UAE is a good example for other Arab countries to follow and this is the 12th year in which the country is ranked lowest in the region despite the unprecedented growth of the IT industry. The use of the broadband has spread wide, providing more opportunities for pirates to use high-tech solutions," said Jawad Al Redha, BSA co-chairman for the Gulf region.

Mohammad Ahmad Bin Abdul Aziz Al Shehi, Director General of the UAE Ministry of Economy, said: "The Ministry of Economy is committed to working with local and international organisations to combat piracy. In addition to Microsoft, we work with bodies such as the global intellectual property centre; the association of software publishers and the Arab publishers association to fight piracy.

"By combining our efforts, we hope to be able to counter any threats that affect innovation with the aim of strengthening economic development and protecting consumers from piracy."

Naser Samaenah, Anti-Piracy Manager, Adobe Middle East, said: "The UAE is one of the advanced countries when it comes to technology and it is also one of the first countries to put various rules and regulation to protect intellectual properties.

"Software companies and the government still need to put more efforts into educating people about piracy and its impact on national economy, unemployment and technology growth. We have seen a great support and major steps forward to support our efforts from the UAE Ministry of Economy, Dubai Customs and Dubai Police."

Al Redha said adoption of the internet has increased the availability of pirated software. From 2008 to 2012, another 700 million will enter cyberspace, 76 per cent of which will be located in emerging markets.

Of the 200 million households expected to get broadband access between now and the end of 2012, more than half will be in the emerging geographies. Access to pirated software will continue shift from the streets to the internet.

Samaenah said the fast growth of broadband has made it easy to pirate software. P2P networking drives piracy from home. UK company CacheLogic has measured internet traffic for tier 1 ISPs, and found that more than 60 per cent of it was from P2P protocols.