Singaporean company settles with BSA over piracy

A Singaporean company caught using pirated software has reached a settlement with the Business Software Alliance (BSA), bringing to a close what is seen here as a landmark copyright infringement case.

PDM International, an interior design company, settled with the BSA for an undisclosed sum, the industry group said Friday. As part of the settlement with BSA, PDM International has ensured that it uses only licensed software, the group said.

Following a tip-off to the BSA’s anti-piracy hotline, PDM International was charged in March with 51 counts of using unlicensed software, including applications from BSA members Microsoft, Adobe Systems, and Autodesk. A month later, the company was fined S$30,000 (US$19,120) by a district court in Singapore, the first company to be convicted under the country’s updated Copyright Act, which toughened penalties for copyright violations when it went into effect on Jan. 1, 2005.

“This is a ground-breaking case,” said Tarun Sawney, the BSA’s director of anti-piracy efforts in Asia. “Not only do you have the criminal component, but there’s also the civil side.”

Sawney credits Singapore’s tougher copyright protection laws for helping to reduce piracy here, but said there is much more to be done. The software piracy rate in Singapore is roughly 40 percent, lower than the Asian average but higher than other developed countries, he said.