Software piracy rate expected to drop to 56% — library department

AMMAN — Jordan’s software piracy rate is expected to drop to 56 per cent in 2016 due to intensified efforts to combat the issue, Mohammad Abbadi, director general of the National Library Department (NLD), said Wednesday.

“We are on the right track in this respect. The major international report measuring Jordan’s software piracy is released every two years and the next time will be in 2016, when I expect it to go down to 56 per cent,” Abbadi told The Jordan Times.

During the first six months of this year, the NLD confiscated more than 22,000 pirated items including CDs, DVDs, videogames and books, Abbadi said.

The NLD referred more than 300 cases of intellectual property rights violations to court over the first six months of this year, he added.

“The rise in volume of confiscated items is only about 5 per cent. This is normal because with the advanced technologies people are not buying pirated movies, songs and even videogames like before,” Abbadi noted, citing online tools that enable users to download everything for free.

Software piracy in Jordan dropped by 1 per cent in 2013 and the Kingdom was among five Arab states with the lowest illegal use of unlicensed software, according to a study by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

Jordan registered a 57 per cent software piracy rating in 2013, compared to 58 per cent in 2011 and 57 per cent in 2009, the 2013 BSA Global Software Survey said.

The commercial value of unlicensed software in Jordan amounted to $35 million in 2013 compared to $31 million in 2011, according to the BSA study.

The Jordanian Copyright Law stipulates that it is a crime to download software, music or movies that are protected under the legislation. Offenders face a prison sentence of between three months and three years and a fine ranging from JD1,000 to JD6,000.