Speaking at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Abuja, BSA spokes person, Mr. Akeem Aponmade, said the pact would drive the anti-piracy campaign in the country.
He pointed out that following the recent launch of BSA ‘Consequences of Campaign’ to raise awareness among software distributors, resellers, partners and users of the legal and operational risks involved in the use of illegal software.
He stressed that the latest partnership is a great first step towards solving this problem once and for all.
“The BSA and NCC partnership will help to track the activities of software license violators and enforce compliance as a way to curb the menace on the nation’s economy,” he said, emphasising that software piracy, for instance, has a detrimental effect on the nation’s economy, as each year, software producers, partners and consumers are lose billions of dollars.
This, according to him, cripples the local software industry, increases unemployment and deprives the government of vital tax revenue.
Mr. Aponmade, explained that software piracy is copyright theft, and that the BSA ‘consequences campaign’ has been designed to sensitise the consumers and the general public as well as to warn the pirates on the consequences of their actions .
For the Director-General (DG), Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), Mr. Adebambo Adewope applauded the initiative by BSA to join the fight against piracy in the country.
In an address delivered by a director in NCC and Legal Adviser, Mr. Sunday Fagbemi, Mr. Adewope said, the evils that are attendant to piracy are legion.
“Piracy kills creativity and diminishes the growth of the economy. Piracy is akin to robbery. NCC is committed to fight piracy in all it facets. This collaboration with BSA is one more step towards upholding the intellectual property law,” he said.
He equally said that, a key strategy towards winning the fight is for all relevant bodies to join the campaign.
“Government is very serious in the fight against piracy in all its ramifications, be it literary, music or design. The kernel of this understanding between the commission and BSA is to fight digital piracy. Software piracy has assumed high profile sophistication and it must be fought with all seriousness,” Mr. Adewope said.
BSA is a foremost global organization dedicated to promoting a safe and legal digital world, even as it stands as the voice of the world’s commercial software industry and its hardware partners before governments and the international marketplace.
Its members cut across the fastest growing industries in the world including Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Avid, Bentley Systems, Borland, CA, Cadence Design Systems, Cisco Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, Dell, EMC, Entrust, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Monotype Imaging, PTC, SAP, SolidWorks, Sybase, Symantec, Synopsys, The MathWorks and UGS.
No comments:
Post a Comment