Police raid opens State crackdown on software pirates

Vinh Trinh, Nhat Hai and SingPC company computers were found with illegal copies of Microsoft, Lac Viet dictionary and Norton anti-virus software, among others.
“This raid was the start of a nationwide campaign to protect the intellectual property rights of software companies,” said Nguyen Duc Thinh, head of the trade ministry’s Market Management Bureau.
“It is the first time the Vietnamese government has made serious attempts to enforce copyright laws for software.”
Police and bureau inspectors would continue to make surprise raids across the country, Thinh said.
Software piracy is endemic in Vietnam, undermining the country’s efforts to integrate into the regional and global economy.
The US Business Software Association estimates that 90 per cent of the software used in Vietnam is illegally installed.
“The high rate of software piracy has affected not only the establishment of a local software industry and the possibility of export of Vietnamese software, but also deterred investors from producing software here,” said Nguyen Anh Tuan, an official from the Ministry of Post and Telematics.
Tuan said many software investors in Vietnam specialised in dictionary, anti-virus and accounting programmes, and have said that piracy was so rife it was almost impossible for them to sell their products here.
“But it is a sensitive issue because if computer companies install software legally, the price of computers will increase by more than $100 each.”
The deputy head of the National Office of Intellectual Property, Hoang Van Tan, told Vietnam Investment Review that under the increasing pressure of integration, the Vietnamese government and local enterprises would have to start complying with the rules on intellectual property rights.
“According to commitments in the US-Vietnam bilateral trade agreement and the conditions for membership of the WTO, software piracy and trade fraud have to be taken extremely seriously. But it is a difficult issue for Vietnam given the current context,” he said. “We have no separate law on intellectual property yet.”
Software piracy and violations related to intellectual property are considered trade fraud and are settled under the ordinance on fake commodities, with a maximum fine of VND100 million ($6,600).