RIYADH, 11 March 2008 — In what is being called the first lawsuit of its kind in Saudi Arabia, the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international organization that tries to enforce copyright law for software used by commercial enterprises, has filed an SR5-million lawsuit against a Saudi company for using pirated software.
Common practice in Saudi Arabia is not to divulge the names of companies involved in litigation.
Majed Garoub, a Jeddah-based lawyer who is representing the software publisher against the company, said the lawsuit is also calling for “cancellation of commercial registrations of the company.” The name of the software publisher was also not divulged. Garoub said that his client intends to file more lawsuits in the Kingdom against other companies.
“This has harmed the national economy and caused rights holders immense losses amounting to an estimated $200 million annually,” said Mohammed Aldhabaan, a lawyer and BSA’s representative in the Kingdom. “Currently we are focusing on tracking big companies because it is easier to find evidence against them. Our next step will be to move to small shops.”
The BSA estimates that 52 percent of companies in Saudi Arabia do business using illegally obtained software.
Garoub said that protecting intellectual property rights would help encourage companies to invest in the Kingdom and thus generate new revenue sources for the national economy.
The lawyer added that the Ministry of Culture and Information has agreed to work with the BSA, but that cooperative measures have yet to be implemented.
