The move by Plaza Low Yat is a continuation of their continued joint efforts to put an end to software piracy with help from Microsoft Malaysia. Both parties view this as a proactive step in complementing the Ministry of Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism’s (MDTCC) Gerak Gempur Cetak Rompak Anti-Piracy Campaign which was launched in May this year. One of the key goals of the campaign was to clean up shopping malls by drastically reducing all forms of piracy in malls and piracy hotspots.
“The tough stance Microsoft is taking here will not only protect and benefit consumers in the long run, but would also protect and support the large majority of computer dealers who are doing the right thing,” said Low Sin Yip, General Manager of the OEM group at Microsoft Malaysia.
Microsoft also dispelled some myths of software piracy.
Myth: Pirated software is cheaper than genuine software.
Low giving away the grand prize to Tunku Azlan bin Tunku Osman at the prize-giving ceremony of the ‘Microsoft Genuine Rewards End-User Contest’ held in Plaza Low Yat on Monday.
Reality: Actually, high-quality counterfeit software is often sold at market price, and in some cases can be more expensive than the genuine product.
Lower-quality counterfeit may be cheaper, but what might be cheaper could actually end up exposing your personal information, hurting your computer and disrupting your life — and with a large monetary burden.
According to a 2006 study by the International Data Corp.2 (http://www.idc.com), the cost to recover from just one incident of malicious software on a single PC can run over a thousand dollars, and the cost to organisations from lost or compromised data can run into the tens of thousands of dollars per incident.
The best way to ensure you get the best value is to simply purchase the genuine item from a reputable source.
Myth: Software piracy doesn’t hurt anyone. It’s not like anyone has ever been seriously injured, right?
Reality: Wrong. Consumers who download or buy hard copies of pirated software are at risk of receiving inferior products that leave them vulnerable to viruses, spyware and other malicious codes, as well as potential identity theft from transactions with unscrupulous businesses selling counterfeit software.
If you install illegally downloaded or counterfeit software there is a good chance that your computer will be infected with a virus that can steal or damage your information. In addition, research finds that today’s tech-savvy software pirates may also be creating large-scale botnets with computers using counterfeit software, and that these armies of compromised computers are being used to perform a host of illegal Internet activities such as spamming, without computer owners being aware this is happening. - by Karamjit Singh
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