SPA set for recruiting drive

The Software Publishers Association (SPA) will stage a recruiting drive for Asia-Pacific members in October when it hosts its first regional conference in Singapore.

SPA, dominated by North American and European companies, has been lobbying Hong Kong legislators on intellectual property as a bills committee reviews the content of new copyright legislation. One of the group's aims is to combat software piracy.

The US Government last week placed Hong Kong on the intellectual property watch list over allegations of continuing copyright violations against US companies in the territory. Fake CDs of Microsoft Windows 97, an operating system that is not even on the market, have been discovered in Hong Kong.