Copyright violating activity plays an important part in having yearly hundreds of billion forints flowing over to the black economy, reducing tax income by 30 billion forints and losing thousands of IT work places. (1) Deceiving customers is also a factor in having a 7% higher software piracy rate than the European Union average. Free, copied software put law-abiding retailers into an impossible situation.

BSA experience shows that even today many people are not aware that both the managers and the assistants caught in selling illegal software face criminal and compensation charges for distributing illegal software. Be it for free or for a symbolic compensation, the shop assistant who "forgets" operations systems or so called test copies of software applications on the PC cannot escape responsibility either. Furthermore, the prospect of deteriorating economic environment may encourage a number of IT retailers to go for solutions violating the law. Therefore, understandably, criminal investigation authorities dedicate attention and increased activity to this field.

Last quarter figures speak about a dangerous trend, the prime reason of which might be the deteriorating economic situation. While, for years, the ratio of law violating IT retailers stayed at 10-15%, in September 2008 - according to reports of BSA member companies - it suddenly rocketed and reached 28, 39 and 31% in the respective months. Following the police raids, in a number of cases criminal proceedings have been started for breach of the copyright law as well as a number of software developers have announced their civil law claims against illegal distributors of their software.

Police raids, started upon customer reports, have been conducted at the retailers below, based on the information provided by the police:

Győri és Társa, Szombathely
ADK Media, Sopron
System-Line, Sopron
Nógrád SZESZÁM, Salgótarján
L&L Computer, Püspökladány
Vagyonvédelmi és Számítástechnika bolt, Püspökladány
Tronix, Debrecen
Beks Kft., Debrecen
Modul-94 Bt., Hajdúhadház
3 py Computer, Nyíradony
ELRICO Bt., Hajdúnánás
TOMNET Bt., Hajdúnánás

While discouraging financial news dominate world headlines, it is clearer than before that promoting innovation and economic opportunity and growth is more critical than ever. Yet, software piracy and counterfeiting achieves the contrary effect: it damages economies worldwide and prevents countries from benefiting from the technology industry's contributions to economic development and tax income.

In order to stop illegal distribution of software and to protect the interests of law abiding enterprises, BSA advises all parties involved to make increased efforts to inform customers and IT retailers and to disseminate widespread knowledge about legal software. Customers should also bear in mind that only legal software guarantees the expected full performance and benefit of the full range of services and support.

(1)Economic losses are based on a 10% decrease of software piracy and on the data of Global Piracy and Economic Impact Studies of IDC.

About BSA
The Business Software Alliance (www.bsa.org) is the foremost organisation dedicated to promoting a safe and legal digital world. BSA is the voice of the world's commercial software industry and its hardware partners before governments and in the international marketplace. Its members represent one of the fastest growing industries in the world. BSA programmes foster technology innovation through education and policy initiatives that promote copyright protection, cyber security, trade and e-commerce. BSA members include: Adobe, Altium, Apple, Autodesk, Bentley Systems, CNC, Corel, CyberLink, Dassault Systčmes SolidWorks Corporation, Embarcadero, Famatech, Graphisoft, Microsoft, Mindjet, Quark, Siemens, Symantec, Tekla and The MathWorks.