Over a period of three years, a man in Bandar Baru Sungai Long, near Kajang in Malaysia, has been making himself a cool million ringgit, all from selling pirated software.
The Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Ministry revealed that the man in his 30s produced pirated copies of keybilling management software – a key tool for those wanting to run cybercafe businesses, among others – using only two original copies of the software he was bootlegging and seven central processing units (CPUs).
The software pirate had been operating from a shoplot in Bandar Baru Sungai Long since 2011, until his operation was uncovered five months ago, The Star Online reports.
Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Ministry enforcement division special task force chief Fahmi Kasim said the man would take a page from many software companies’ handbooks and offer potential clients a free month-long trial period for the software he was hawking.
“Once the trial period has expired, customers who are happy with the software could purchase it. This has resulted in the owner of the original software losing about RM1.1 million,” he said.
The man was arrested on June 20 after his premises were raided.
Fahmi added that the pirated software was also believed to have been distributed to clients in other countries in the region, such as Thailand and the Philippines.
On another related story, Malaysia’s neighbour Singapore, has recently been cracking down hard on online piracy. The Parliament of Singapore has recently approved a proposed copyright law, which allows rights holders to apply to the courts for injunctions demanding local Internet service providers such as SingTel or StarHub to block access to infringing sites.
The new law, which comes into effect this end August, was first proposed and debated in April 2014, and will have the most impact on websites such as The Pirate Bay.
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