The MoU signing ceremony.

VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam Author Right Agency, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Inspectorate, the Business Software Alliance and the Vietnam Software Association on August 26 signed a memorandum of understanding on software copyright protection in Hanoi.

Under this MoU, the Vietnam Author Right Agency and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s Inspectorate agreed to launch campaigns to raise the people and particularly businesses’ awareness of software copyrights.

The MoU also aims to boost inspection of software use by individuals and organisations and apply new, stricter sanctions to prevent copyright infringement.

The MoU has also expressed the desire to cooperate with the media to increase people’s knowledge about the need for software copyright protection.

According to Dr. Vu Manh Chu, Chief of the Vietnam Author Right Agency, the aim of the MoU is improving the awareness of and respect for software copyrights, especially among businesses. Vietnam has gained remarkable success in combating software copyright violations in recent years.

Tarun Sawney, Executive Manager of the Business Software Alliance in Asia-Pacific, confirmed that the alliance would assist Vietnamese agencies through training activities, share international experience in building and conducting policies in software copyright protection.

The rate of software copyright violation in Vietnam has fallen in recent years, from 92% in 2004 to 85% in 2007.

According to a recent research work by the IDC, if the software copyright infringement rate decreases by 10 percentage points in 4 years, the software industry will earn an additional $623 million of revenue.

PV