MS Marisella Ouma, Kenya Copyright Board executive director
Kenya is losing the war on software piracy due to low consumer willingness to pay for legal applications and shrinking government interest in the battle.
The country is saddled with high piracy levels, standing at 80 per cent, having fallen by only one per cent between 2007 and 2008. This pales in comparison to South Africa whose piracy levels stood at 35 per cent last year.
Cyber cafes A global PC software piracy study, which surveyed 110 countries, estimated industry losses due to the theft at $31 million last year.
The Kenya Copyright Board, which last year launched a crackdown on illegal software use, has taken the campaign a notch higher by targeting corporate and government agencies.
The most likely software to be pirated in the country are those that require users to pay a licensing fee to vendors.
Financial packages The study covered all software that runs on personal computers, industry desktops, and portable notebooks, including operating systems such as data bases, financial packages, and application software.
The board blames high piracy rate on fast growth in the number of ordinary consumers and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Faced with legal action, many operators of cyber cafes have migrated to the Free Open Source software, whose source code is available for modification and is often free.
“A 10-point reduction in PC software piracy in Kenya would help create 1,100 new jobs and $12 million in tax revenues,” says the report released last week by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international association representing the global software industry.
The Microsoft anti-piracy manager, Mr Abed Hlatshwayo, says software is unique in its ability to drive value in other sectors and calls for the reduction of piracy to help the country reap benefits of a strong national software and IT sector.
Business owners “Reducing PC software piracy is important for business owners and small and medium enterprises in order to reduce legal and business risks of using unlicensed applications,” he said.
Mr Dale Waterman, the vice-chairman of BSA Middle East and Africa Committee, said: “This report demonstrates the impact that we are making in Kenya to further reduce software piracy.”
Ms Marisella Ouma, the Kenya Copyright Board executive director, said effort to push pirates out of business was paying off and asked the public to help in the protection of intellectual property rights. Software piracy affects much more than just industry revenues.
The study says that the vice had dropped in 57 countries, remained constant in 36, and increased in only 16.
And because the global PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide theft rate rose by three per cent to 41 per cent in 2008.
The most notorious countries in sub-Saharan Africa are Zimbabwe 92 per cent, Cameroon 83 per cent, and Nigeria 83 per cent.
Come online The least affected were Mauritius 57 per cent, and Senegal, 79 per cent. The study also noted that spreading Internet access will increase the supply of pirated software.
Over the next five years, 460 million people in emerging countries will come online.
The growth will be highest among individual consumers and small businesses, which tend to have higher rates of piracy than larger businesses and government agencies.
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