Monday, December 16, 2002		Feature

NIFD raided for pirated software

DELHI Police raided the privately run National Institute of Fashion Design (NIFD) for allegedly using pirated software. The raid was conducted last week at two premises of the institute in West Patel Nagar in West Delhi and Pitampura in northwest Delhi. "A representative of the Adobe Company informed us that the institute was using pirated software to teach its students," a police officer told IANS. Seven computers were seized after the raid.

They were found to be running pirated versions of Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Imageready and Adobe Photodeluxe. "They had been using the pirated software for quite some time. We have charged them with copyright violations," the officer said.

Meanwhile, 12 computer dealers in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai have been found selling unlicensed software after a crackdown by Microsoft.

Of the 12 dealers, eight have reached out of court settlements with Microsoft. The remaining companies are facing civil or legal action for copyright infringement after unsuccessful attempts to resolve the matter amicably.

The crackdown took place in August and September after Microsoft received information that a number of businesses were ‘hard loading’ pirated copies of Windows ’98, Windows 2000 and Office 2000 onto personal computers.

Rampant software piracy in India has cost the Indian government a whopping Rs.38 billion in the last three years, the Lok Sabha was informed last week.

The government lost Rs.9 billion in revenue during 1999-2000, Rs.12 billion in 2000-01 and Rs.17 billion in the year ended March 31, 2002, due to software piracy, Minister of State for Communications and IT Sanjay Paswan said.

On measures taken by the government to curb software piracy, the minister said the intellectual property rights of software is now covered under copyright law, violation of which attracts both fine and punishment.