Jail term for piracy 'should deter others'

A five-month jail term imposed on a 36-year-old computer shop owner for selling computers with unlicensed software should serve as a warning of the consequences of such criminal action, the Customs and Excise Department said yesterday.

It was the first jail term and the heaviest penalty yet for such an offence, the department said.

The man was charged after customs officers raided the shop in Yuen Long on March 13 and seized 27 pirated software discs and a computer with unlicensed software installed worth about HK$5,000. The pirated software included the operating system and office application software.

The male owner of the shop was sentenced in Tuen Mun Court in June for breach of the Copyright Ordinance. Under the ordinance, anyone who knowingly uses pirated software in business or sells the pirated software in the course of any trade or business commits a criminal offence.

The maximum penalty is a fine of HK$50,000 per infringing copy and imprisonment for four years.

Earlier this month customs officers arrested five men and two women after their companies were found using pirated software in the first such arrests since the copyright law was amended this year.