Thursday, March 09, 2006

Singapore Company Charged With Copyright Violation

PDM International Pte LTD, a design consultancy company was charged in court on Thursday with three counts of copyright infringement.


This is the first private company to be charged under the amended Copyright Act since it came into force on January 1, 2005.

This company is alleged to have used 51 copies of unlicensed software to gain a commercial advantage.

The total market value of the illegal software programs, which include works belonging to Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft, is estimated to be worth $50,000.

This case came to light through the efforts of the Business Software Alliance.

"We continue to run a hotline where we receive information, and we also have a web reporting facility where informants can contact us about the use of unlicensed software at the workplace. We are getting a steady stream of such information, and there are a number of cases presently under investigation. Whether they will go through to a court case or not, we'll have to wait and see," said Tarun Sawney with Business Software Alliance's Anti-Piracy.

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