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发表于 6-1-2005 15:46:03|来自:新加坡
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<P>其实,主要针对的还是公司用户,个人的也不能下太多。附上一篇1月3日《海峡时报》的报道,供参考。</P><P>Software sales up with tighter rules </P><P>By Chua Hian Hou</P><P>A TOUGHER copyright law that came into effect on Saturday has seen sales at three software companies rise since the amendments were announced last October.</P><P>Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft were part of the 10-vendor consortium that offered software discounts of up to 40 per cent to help local companies change to genuine software. This scheme has ended.</P><P>The consortium was initiated by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (Ipos) in October last year, when amendments to the Act were made public.</P><P>Primarily aimed at getting local companies to 'go legit', the amended Act makes the use of pirated software, music and movies a criminal offence.</P><P>First offenders can be fined $20,000 or jailed for up to six months, or both.</P><P>While piracy in Singapore fell from 48 per cent in 2002 to 43 per cent in 2003, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) hopes to see a further '10 per cent fall in piracy rates this year', said its regional director for Asia, Mr Jeffrey Hardee.</P><P>In Asia, the average piracy rate is 53 per cent.</P><P>Intellectual property lawyer Mark Lim said achieving Mr Hardee's target depends on how strongly the law is enforced, as well as the penalties handed down by the courts.</P><P>The director of law firm Tan Peng Chin LLC believes the first case to be prosecuted under this tougher legislation will involve 'company directors of businesses with large numbers of unauthorised software'.</P><P>This will send a clear message to companies that the copyright owners are taking action, he added.</P><P>Once this happens, the piracy rate here 'will almost certainly drop, and will go down further after a few cases are brought to court'.</P><P>The BSA declined to comment on enforcement, but police spokesman Victor Keong said: 'When the police receive information about sales and distribution of infringing articles, they work together with the rights holder on enforcement.'</P><P>Besides companies, home users who commit large-scale piracy can also run foul of the amended Act, especially those who download 'hundreds of pirated files', said Mr Lim.</P><P>One such home user, who declined to be identified, said: 'The authorities don't have enough resources to chase everyone, so they'll probably go after pirate syndicates instead of small fry like me.'</P><P>At last count, the unemployed former finance executive had about 80GB of pirated music, movie and game software he had downloaded using speedy download software called BitTorrent, available on a website which also has links to download sites.</P><P>In fact, he was more distressed that some popular BitTorrent-linked download sites had shut down, forcing him to look for alternatives.</P><P>Ipos director-general Liew Woon Yin said in an earlier press conference that the man in the street who downloads a few pirated items will not be a target under this law.</P><P>Because of this, Mr Lim said, the legislation's deterrent impact on home user piracy is likely to be significantly less than that on companies.
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