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Piracy arrests on the increase
Date Posted: Friday 02-May-2008By Barry Bateman
The Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft (SAFACT) has praised the authorities for cracking down on the illicit trade of pirated goods.
SAFACT chief executive James Lennox this week released statistics for the first three months of 2008 in respect to anti-piracy actions aimed at protecting films, TV series and PlayStation games.
According to the piracy threat assessment for the first quarter of this year, street vendors, burner labs, auctions and sales websites were less of a problem compared to the same period last year.
But the number of workplace vendors, retailers, home operators, download websites and corporate and varsity networks found with pirated software had increased, and flea markets remained a threat.
Lennox said arrests went up 341 percent, cases making it onto the court roll went up 408 percent and convictions went up 633 percent.
He said the results could not have been achieved without the commitment and dedication of the SAPS, SA Revenue Service, department of trade and industry, National Prosecuting Authority and the judiciary.
Lennox said an area of increasing concern was the abuse of corporate and university Internet connections by employees and students who downloaded and distributed pirated copyright content.
"SAFACT hopes to increase its co-operation with the respective institutions to minimise such piracy without inhibiting the development of the Internet."
He said that although piracy levels in South Africa remained unacceptably high, he was optimistic in the eventual success of efforts to reduce the level of piracy to more tolerable levels in the next two years.
"Such success will only be achieved with the ongoing commitment of the state, consistent enforcement of intellectual property rights, increased vigour in protecting such rights by the owners of intellectual property and the imposition of significant deterrent sentences by the courts on those found guilty of this crime," Lennox said.
He appealed to consumers to continue to turn their backs on pirated products.
He said he hoped that the federation's anti-piracy awareness campaigns would help to reduce the demand for pirated goods.