The Kuwaiti Ministry of Information announced Monday, October 29, that it has conducted a raid against an engineering company in Kuwait City, which was found to be using illegal software on 10 of its Personal Computers (PCs). The matter would be transferred to the prosecutor, as dictated by Kuwait’s copyright law.
Unlicensed copies of Autodesk AutoCad 14, AutoCad 2000, Norton Anti Virus, Adobe P.S 5.5, Adobe Premiere and Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Windows 95, Windows 98, Office 97 and Office 2000 were found on the company’s computers.
“Kuwait believes in promoting creativity in all domains and software development is one element of that. We have to let people know that they cannot abuse the law in this manner and that they should pay for software just as they pay for other products and commodities.” commented Shaikha Rasha Naif Al-Sabah, Director of the IPR department at the Kuwaiti Ministry of Information.
The Ministry also works closely with local, regional and international software development companies to ensure that the education market is protected and that legal software is made affordable to students and educators. Many companies offer up to 97 percent discounts to students in order to encourage them to purchase legal software.
Software copyright infringement in any country is a major cause of distrust by IT entrepreneurs, which lessens their investments and therefore affects the job market and the economy as a whole. — (Mena Report)
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
