The companies, which operate in the
manufacturing, construction, trading and real estate industries, were found to
be using 712 unlicensed software products in their business operations,
including Lac Viet and BKIS software made by Vietnamese software
developers.
"The companies are large ones. They can
certainly afford to buy genuine software," said Pham Xuan Phuc, deputy chief
inspector of MoCST. "One of them even has registered capital of $10 million."
Under Vietnamese law, using illegal software is
punishable by a fine of up to $24,000.
Viet Nam's PC software piracy rate in 2010 was
83 per cent, falling 2 per cent from the previous year. The regional average PC
software piracy rate in Asia Pacific was 60 per cent.
In August 2008, the Copyright Office of Viet
Nam, the Inspectorate of MoCST, the Business Software Alliance and Viet Nam
Software Association formed a Partnership in Protection of Software Copyright.
Recent enforcement actions are the fruits of this partnership. —
VNS
By (Vietnamnews)