JEDDAH, 25 January 2003 — Despite the decrease in copyright piracy in the Kingdom following concerted efforts by the authorities to fight the phenomenon, annual losses in intellectual property rights are estimated at SR75 million, according to an official at the Information Ministry.
Obeidallah Al-Obeidallah, head of the ministry’s branch in the Western Province, said a new campaign has been launched against copyright offenders.
“We have witnessed major successes in the campaign against illegal operations by system builders. The ministry’s efforts resulted in the seizure of pirated hardware and software with an estimated total value of more than SR11 million,” Al-Obeidallah said.
He said the “Educate, Warn and then Bust” campaign was timed to commence with computer exhibitions held in Riyadh and Jeddah between Sept. 15 and 21.
“The department also sent out letters to computer system builders warning them not to deal in counterfeit hardware or software,” he added.
Following the continuous warnings, officials have raided 34 system builders in Riyadh, Alkhobar and Dammam, out of which 21 were found to be selling illegal products.
A large part of the loss was accounted for in the sales of pirated CDs of a wide range of software programs.
“In October we have forwarded warning letters to around 292 system builders Kingdomwide and later a total of 12,000 pirated items worth SR7.7 million were seized including hardware and software,” he said, adding that piracy causes direct loss to the Kingdom’s software developers and importers.
“We are working hard to protect intellectual property rights,” Al-Obeidallah said. “Though there has been a decrease in the piracy rate from the 59 percent to 52 percent, these losses are totally unacceptable,” he added.
