Effort to clamp down on illegal software launched
BSA The Software Alliance is partnering with Thai police and chief executives on a campaign to reduce the use of illegal software in the workplace by the end of 2019.
The Clean Up to the Countdown campaign seeks to encourage top executives to legalize their corporate software assets before midnight on December 31, 2019.
This campaign targets 10,000 companies across Thailand that are thought to be using illegal software. This includes corporations in a variety of business sectors, such as manufacturing, construction, banking and finance, engineering, architecture, media, design, IT and healthcare. Many of these companies are known users of software, but lack license agreements from software providers.
BSA is working with the ECD police to ramp up enforcement against corporations using illegal software and has already helped identify nearly 10,000 companies in 10 provinces suspected of using illegal software.
The Economic Crime Suppression Division wants to see business leaders take a proactive approach to cleaning up their corporate software assets so that they can enter 2020 as a safe and secure company. From now until the end of the year, it will continue to raid companies who do not comply with the Thai laws protecting software copyright.
While ECD enforces the Thai laws, BSA is contacting thousands of corporate leaders in Thailand to offer guidance and advice in addressing illegal software use in the workplace.
“Some CEOs may be aware their company is using illegal software and are wary of investing in genuine software,” notes BSA Senior Director Tarun Sawney. “But there are other CEOs whose companies have hundreds or thousands of PCs, who simply may not be aware of the type of software running on their corporation’s PCs – and whether it is legal or not.”
“BSA wants to help CEOs do the right thing but this requires that CEOs take a hands-on approach to addressing the risk of using illegal software in business operations. Our advice is that CEOs treat the risk of illegal software with the utmost importance. This means being hands-on and proactive. CEOs can and should control this risk factor,” Sawney adds.
The solution, according to the software industry, includes a better effort by CEOs at self-policing their own use of software by corporations in Thailand.
The Clean Up to the Countdown campaign is a part of Legalize and Protect initiative launched earlier this year. So far, the initiative has helped thousands companies in Thailand legalize their software assets and protect data from malware and hackers.
