Jordan forum sees Mideast progress in IPR protection

Business Software Alliance (BSA), the international association established by the software industry to promote a safe and legal digital world, announced that a two-day Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Forum opened in Amman, Jordan, on Monday. The Forum is being organised in partnership with the Jordan Ministry of Culture’s Department of the National Library and will focus on the achievements of Arab countries in IPR protection.

Mamoun Talhouni, Director General, Jordan National Library, said, “The fact that Jordan is hosting this conference for the second time reinforces the country’s commitment towards IPR protection with an underlying objective of bringing about socio-economic benefits. We call upon all concerned authorities to provide their support to create a safe digital world; we should also leverage the Forum’s platform to work towards greater cooperation with various governments and authorities to fight piracy. We are glad to be part of this forum standing next to BSA helping them curb the menace of piracy. ”

Alastair De Wet, Compliancy Manager for MEA and Med, Adobe Systems Incorporated, said, “To effectively bring down piracy rates there has to be a sustained and combined effort from the governments, corporate and individual users as well. The increased level of IT penetration among all sectors in the market has encouraged us to help in the distribution of IPR laws. Also the huge losses suffered by software companies each year due to the threat of piracy, coupled with the damage caused to individual and corporate users in terms of loss of data and harm to computers systems, are enough reasons to take stringent actions against violators of intellectual property right laws.”

A study conducted by IDC (International Data Corporation), the IT industry’s leading global market research and forecasting firm, showed that software piracy levels in the Middle East dropped one percentage point in 2005 to 57%, while the global piracy rate remained unchanged at 35%. The study shows that the Middle East and Africa region has made substantial progress in tackling the problem of software piracy, with piracy rates dropping in as many as 19 of the 26 countries in the region.

Jawad Al Redha, Co-Chairman, Business Software Alliance, Middle East, said, “The concerted efforts by the authorities, government departments and agencies to bring down piracy rates in their respective countries have shown positive results, with a marked decline in piracy rates in most of the Arab world.”