Software piracy – the long story
According to Nguyen Thanh Nam from Trang Xanh consultancy firm, Vietnamese enterprises, especially the small ones with limited financial capability, can only utilize open source software at a basic level. In order to design more complicated software pieces that serve specific purposes (laborers’ wage calculation, human resource management…), the enterprises need to have officers qualified enough to exploit the open sources to design apps in accordance with their requirements.
Especially, enterprises need to foresee the “life expectancy” of the open source software pieces and set up provision solutions in case of emergency.
According to Nam, the enterprises, which do not have good staff in information technology, should order professional information technology firms to design products. However, not many enterprises choose to follow the way, because they do not want to spend money on this work. Especially, they do not know how to find out the prestigious design firms which can satisfy their demands.
Regarding the software pieces popularly utilized for office works, Nam thinks that businesses still prefer using genuine software products which have been cracked, to the software pieces developed from open sources.
The copyright piracy can be seen popularly in website designing. A director of a web design company in HCM City, who asked to be anonymous, said that even when discovering that their designs are copied, a lot of enterprises would rather “keep silent”, because they are not financially capable enough to take legal proceedings against the violators.
Meanwhile, enterprises have to go on a thorny road to utilize open sources to save money in web design. Graphic designers say there are many open sources that serve the web design, including Jommla, Drupal and WorldPress, but the open sources are only suitable to design personal websites, while the websites using open sources face the higher risks of being attacked, because the sources can be visible, and any programmers can find out the errors.
In general, though enterprises use open sources, they still have to spend money to buy extension packages. The above said director said that his company once had to spend several thousands of dollars to buy the extensions of Joomla to serve their works.
Currently, some commercial extensions have been shared on Internet which Vietnamese enterprises can use free of charge and helps them save money. However, in this case, the security issue of the websites leaves open.
In the field of digital content, in order to dodge the laws relating to the copyright, the administrators of many music sharing websites allow users freely upload the songs performed by themselves or singers.
Meanwhile, according to Lawyer Chau Huy Quang from LCT Lawyers, the use of copyrighted songs on the websites without the permission of musicians and relating parties is considered a piracy behavior. Meanwhile, the founder and administrators of the music websites should also have to take responsibility for the circulation of the songs on their websites.
A lot of Vietnamese enterprises have changed their habit in using software products in order to both better serve their works and ensure the legitimacy of their utilization.
Nguyen Hoang Ly, General Director of VietUnion, the owner of Payoo, an e-wallet product, said that the installation and updating all software products at his company must get the approval of the information technology division. Meanwhile, in order to save money, the division has been assigned to make research and develop software pieces based on open sources. The company only purchases the software products that are really necessary for their works.
Meanwhile, director of a company in HCM City said that his small company tries to take full advantage of the free Google Apps for some kinds of works. Meanwhile, the company buys domestically made software pieces for labor force management and accountancy.
Source: TBKTSG
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