The rate of software piracy in Romania has dropped in the last two years, remained constant in Europe and is rising worldwide, according to data made public Tuesday by the Romanian Police Department, Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the General Prosecutor's Office. Romania's piracy rate is among the highest in the European Union – 65 percent, according to data from last year. It went down from 72 percent in 2007 but is still double the EU average.

Employees of retailers Altex and Domo were accused of software piracy this year and one of them was already convicted to one year in prison with injunction, according to the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

The Romanian Police has checked whether large IT&C companies were using legal software and found that in some cases the companies' employees were installing pirated software on the PCs they were selling and were asking for extra payment for this service.

An Altex employee in Sibiu was convicted to one year in prison for this, while the company has to pay damages to the owner of the copyrights for the pirated software. A Domo employee was also accused of pre-installing pirated software in PCs. The case is still being investigated.

Ten cases were investigated this year and 11 complaints and damages requests were filed about PC stores which sell pirated pre-installed software.

The Romanian authorities have also charged a website torrent creator to six months in jail. The website, kartel.ro, was closed down and the creator had to pay damages to the BSA member companies.

BSA includes several software companies, among which: Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, AVEVA, Bentley Systems, Bitdefender, CNC, Corel, Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks Corporation, Microsoft, Progress Software, Romsym Data, Siemens, Siveco, Softwin, Symantec and The MathWorks.

Companies which use pirated software in Romania can receive a penal fine between RON 5,000 and RON 600,000 (EUR 1,168- EUR 140,000), but their activity can also be shutdown, their work places closed down. Individuals will pay a fine and can be sent to jail for one to four years.

editor@romania-insider.com