Individual Assignment Information Policy -Law

Contents

Introduction to Intellectual Property .......................................................................................... 1 Current Law enforcement for Intellectual Property in Sri Lanka .............................................. 2 Software Piracy .......................................................................................................................... 2 Recommendation for Software Piracy ....................................................................................... 3 Social Recommendations ....................................................................................................... 3 Legal Recommendations ........................................................................................................ 4 Cultural Recommendations .................................................................................................... 6 References .................................................................................................................................. 7

0
P.M.Kotalawala-2012/PgDISM/35

Individual Assignment Information Policy -Law

Introduction to Intellectual Property

Intellectual property refers to the rights, which resulting from the creations by human mind. Inventions, symbols, designs, literary and artistic works, are some of examples for someones intellectual property. It can be furthermore divided into two categories of Patents and Copyrights. Industrial property such as Inventions, Industrial designs, Trademarks and Geographical indications are includes patents, while Copyrights covers Literary and Artistic work of the producer or an artist. Intellectual Property related items, which in a form of information or knowledge can be included in tangible objects in an unlimited number of copies at different locations anywhere in the world. So the creator has right only for the information or knowledge in the copies, but not against tangible copies.

Human creativity is the foundation of human civilization and key to well-being. Therefore true protection for human creation is essential in any country. The reasons for protect and promoting Intellectual Property are to give statutory expression to the property by ensuring 1
P.M.Kotalawala-2012/PgDISM/35

Individual Assignment Information Policy -Law

moral and economic rights of the creator. In the other hand it promotes creativity of individuals and encourages fare-trade by dissemination of legal goods and services to adhere to economic, social and cultural development of countries.

Current Law enforcement for Intellectual Property in Sri Lanka

For the protection of intellectual property in Sri Lanka current intellectual property system, which govern by Intellectual Property Act No 36 of 2003. The provisions of this intellectual property act include rights, acquisition, management, and enforcement of Intellectual Property. For the Administration of Intellectual Property system in Sri Lanka the government established The National Intellectual Property Office of Sri Lanka.

Software Piracy
Software Piracy refers to illegal copying, distribution, and use of software without purchasing it or having the legal rights. According to Webopedia (2013) most of retail programs in the world are allow license for use in an one computer by single user. Therefore user became licensed user rather than the owner. Although the user allow making copies for backup purposes, but handing over the copies to another user is against the law, which is called Softlifting. Client-server overuse is a breach, which occurs when user installed more copies than he or she have licenses for. Online Piracy refers to downloading illegal software from peer-to-peer network source and Counterfeiting is the breach of unauthorized selling of copyrighted software programs. Exponential development of

internet ease the breach of Software Piracy and it becoming a global economic issue, since it steals great part of developers income, which ultimately raises the price for consumers. According to Digital Library-University of Moratuwa (2011) Software Piracy rate of Sri Lanka has grown to 90% and placed among top 5 countries in the world and top two in the 2
P.M.Kotalawala-2012/PgDISM/35

Individual Assignment Information Policy -Law

Asia region with highest rate of piracy. So this will affect the attraction of foreign software vendors to the local market and growth of local software industry.

Recommendation for Software Piracy

Following recommendations for Software Piracy issues in Sri Lanka were discussed based on three domains of Social, Legal, and Cultural. To minimize the software piracy in Sri Lanka these suggested recommendations will help Law Commission of Sri Lanka, which review and advice to the laws in Sri Lanka

Social Recommendations
Many people in the country actually do not know whether the software that they using are pirated or not. Therefore proper education among the people, who use software and other Information technology related features, will encourage their moral fiber that they are lacking when it comes to software piracy. This education could be done by holding proper Awareness Programs to the community. The awareness about the Software Piracy may conduct among both the software users and sellers, who may sell fake software as original ones. So during this awareness programs community should educated on relevant Law enforcements that could taking place against the software piracy acts. Moreover this awareness programs could be focused on more into harms that may cause to the user in some form or other by using pirated software. Therefore results from such awareness program will spread among the communities so rapidly, since the users, who aware of current law suit against software piracy infringements spread the message among the communities those who using pirated software and do not have knowledge about the software piracy infringements. Awareness among the community will directly Change the Attitude of individuals, who using pirated software, since they believe that there could be chance of being caught by using it. Fear about the law enforcements may also change their mindset about the software piracy breaches.

Awareness among the software developers is another major fact when it comes to eradicating the software piracy from the country. Knowledge about the policies such as Acceptable User Policies, which helps to identify users who authorized to access relevant software in the 3
P.M.Kotalawala-2012/PgDISM/35

Individual Assignment Information Policy -Law

organization, will disable unauthorized personal from accessing and copying the relevant software. Therefore software developers could be able to take relevant measures inside the software programs to prevent unauthorized access. Moreover to that software development companies should be enriched by knowledge that could bring down software piracy. Such measures could be

1. Having a central location for all the software programmers/developers of the organization to develop or modify certain applications by taking centralized control over the software developers. 2. Secure master copies and relevant source documents from software developers. 3. Allow permission only for authorized people to install relevant software. 4. Only give commercial software to licensed users. 5. Give adequate training for software developers and other relevant staff to reduce the likelihood of software piracy. 6. Ensure that the people, who are involve in software development are paid on time and sufficiently in manner which they may not used to sell their creation of intellectual property for commercial purposes. According to LankaNewspapers (21st March 2013) obtaining monthly subscriptions for licensed software is benefited Lankan Small and Medium Enterprises and become good approach for them to overcome software piracy. Therefore keeping good track of licenses and users may bring down the rate of piracy. So use of software asset management systems, audit tools, and other resources may help to ensure software compliance of the organization to fight against software piracy. Cornering those who deal with software piracy industry through advertisements and commercials through media and it may reluctant them from entering and dealing with this business, since they aware of effects of getting caught for software piracy. Awareness of software piracy among the Public leaders may also have a direct impact to actions against pirated software, since they are capable of enforcing the laws of the country.

Legal Recommendations
4
P.M.Kotalawala-2012/PgDISM/35

Individual Assignment Information Policy -Law

Although there are many acts, rules, and regulations enforced in Sri Lanka, still we could see pirated software fluctuating in the market without any disruption. The reason for situation and we are still ranked top in the rates of software piracy is current law is dragging slowly when it compared to rapid improvement in the software and IT industry. To align both these domains together the law needs to rapidly update and improve according to the technology improvements. The current law should be amended to new offences against pirated software sellers, distributors, users, and developers such as imprisonments, increase the fine and penalties against software piracy infringements. Charging penalties for three times of retail amount of the damage plus five years imprisonment for serious offences of software piracy could be constitute in the intellectual property law. Furthermore implementing a separate act for Software Piracy in Sri Lanka to tighten the rules and regulation for the individuals, who evading from the prosecution of software piracy infringements.

Proper training for Police officers about the Software Piracy may increase the number of individuals caught because of the software counterfeit. They could continuously undertake raids with help of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to caught companies, which using pirated and unlicensed software in their business. Since it was a criminal offense under the Intellectual Property act police officers must empowered to take legal action against those companies and direct them to courts to build safe and legitimate business environment in the IT industry.

Train judges regarding the Intellectual Property in manner which they could take corrective decisions against persecutor send some message to the community to minimize the breach of software piracy. Implementation of separate court system to expiate the cases separately from other courts will improve the efficiency of taking corrective actions in a timely manner. Introduction of separate state department to ease the monitoring and handle administrative work may also improve the efficiency of certain action against software piracy infringements.

Business may also helpful in preventing software piracy. Their participation in filing cases against software piracy or other companies, who pirated their software where they could able to prove that the software is pirated and win against other companies will receive restitution 5
P.M.Kotalawala-2012/PgDISM/35

Individual Assignment Information Policy -Law

in large amount of money and able to stop accused company doing the software piracy anymore. Moreover they could have the power to shutdown internet sites, which disturbing copyrighted software and their business by taking lawful action against those web sites.

Increasing the price of copyright software may reduce software breaches to reach for the copyrighted software, since them always going for low cost products. This does not worthwhile for the copyright owner of the software, since the customers always looking for most economical products in the market. Therefore bring the price of the copyright software to reasonable amount, where the users are able to purchase and try to convert customers, who used to purchase pirated software, into purchase copyrighted legal in the future. This method may also able attract and change the mindset of people, who thought copyright software is really expensive and decide just to do their work without the software programs.

Cultural Recommendations
Cultural beliefs is always hard to revert back in order to overcome limiting beliefs among them. Creating good value systems among society is really difficult task through awareness programs, since the audience of particular program is small and culture of the country is used to do in other way round. Most of the people do not care whether the software they using is licensed or not. Therefore teaching them about good ethics of using software through media may have bit of impact on adhering to good values throughout the society.

Using of shared or the collective systems, where single system used in many industries for many purposes may reduce the number of software pirated issues, since it was easy to monitor and hard to replicate by the robbers. Therefore implementation of shared systems among communities could be another solution for Software Piracy. Training the community to use these kinds of systems will be a challenge. 6
P.M.Kotalawala-2012/PgDISM/35

Individual Assignment Information Policy -Law

Development and introduction of new technologies may uncomfortable for the software piracy it will secure the information and software from robbers with the use of new measures, which could not hacked or understand by robbers. These technologies will equip with high end tools and techniques, where it capable of easily identify unauthorized personals for entering specific system or website. It will force users to conform before using software and it will comply with the licensing agreement of the software. Therefore it will avoid users to copying the software for personal use. So the implication here is to educate communities about the new tools and technologies, which are able to discourage software pirates by copying individuals intellectual property.

***END***

References
National Intellectual Property office Sri Lanka, What is Intellectual Property,(2013) (http://www.nipo.gov.lk/whatip.htm), Date accessed 02.04.2013 Validy Net Inc, Protection of Software against Piracy,(2013) (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/software_piracy.html), Date accessed 02.04.2013 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), What is Intellectual Property,(2013) (http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/), Date accessed 02.04.2013 Webopedia.com, Software Piracy,(2013) (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/software_piracy.html), Date accessed 02.04.2013 WhatIs.com, Piracy,(2013) (http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/piracy), Date accessed 02.04.2013 Digital Library-University of Moratuwa,Factors influencing Software Piracy in Sri Lanka,(2011) (http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/piracy), Date accessed 05.04.2013 7
P.M.Kotalawala-2012/PgDISM/35

Individual Assignment Information Policy -Law

Scribd, Software Piracy,(2013) (http://www.scribd.com/doc/65205264/Software-Piracy), Date accessed 05.04.2013 Educator's Guide to Computer Crime and Technology Misuse, Software Piracy,(2002) (http://education.illinois.edu/wp/crime/piracy.htm), Date accessed 05.04.2013 LankaNewspapers.com, Lankan Software Piracy rate at daunting 84%,(21st March 2013) (http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/software_piracy.html), Date accessed 05.04.2013 eHow.com, Laws of Software Piracy (2013) (http://www.ehow.com/about_5438918_laws-software-piracy.html), Date accessed 05.04.2013 InvestSrilanka blogspot, Sri Lanka Cracks down on Software Piracy (http://investsrilanka.blogspot.com/2010/12/sri-lanka-crackdowns-on-pirated.html), Date accessed 05.04.2013

8
P.M.Kotalawala-2012/PgDISM/35