Arab firms seek anti-piracy body

Arab software companies have called for the creation of a body similar to Business Software Alliance (BSA) to protect their copyright, saying the millions they lose every year from piracy is preventing them from further development.

The call was made on the sidelines of Gitex where Arab companies are showcasing their products along with IT giants in one of the world's fastest growing regions.

Ebrahim Eisa, from the Jordanian software company, Turath, said Arab companies suffer 35 to 50 per cent loss in revenues annually because they lack copyright protection from governments and the BSA, which is a powerful lobby group that has succeeded in reducing piracy in the region and around the world in the past few years.

Arab software groups have emerged to fill a yawning need for software programmes to serve the Arab world's 300 million population.

Their products are focused on educational, religion, children and games programmes.

The total software market in the Arab world is estimated at $500 million annually.

But Eisa said these companies can do much more in producing state-of-the-art software if they have the right budgets to spend on development in a market that prevents piracy.

Jawad Al Redha, BSA CEO, said that the international anti-piracy association offers its services to some 15 Arab software companies who are members of BSA, in an indirect invitation to other companies to follow suit.

But he added that these companies could always resort to their governments to tighten the regulations against piracy.

"Arab governments should take the UAE as an example in enforcing strict anti-piracy laws," he said.

"The piracy rate in the Arab World goes up to 52 per cent of the total software produced here."

Joining BSA does not appear as an option for the majority of Arab companies, mostly small ones, who say it is too expensive to be a member in what they see as an exclusive club for giant IT companies.

"We can't afford to pay the membership fees for BSA," said Eisa.

Another reason cited by Arab companies is that BSA has a different agenda, which is to protect a multi-billion dollar companies from piracy across the world, while Arab software producers are more concerned about their regional market. The software companies are mostly based in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. But Saudi Arabia remains the biggest market for their products.

Michael Nasir, the organiser of the Lebanese pavilion, said that the main targets for piracy were educational software, games and music, while specially tailored products are more difficult to copy because they require back up programmes and assistance that is hard to obtain.

"If any body is to be created in the region, it should be private, not a government one," said Jalal Fawaz, president of the Professional Computer Association in Lebanon.