A Saudi business reporter in a leading Arabic daily has been named winner of Business Software Alliance Copyright Award for 2008. Hussein Musaad, who covers business and economy in a leading Arabic daily said he was very happy to receive the award. “I felt proud of the BSA award because I was chosen from some hundreds of entries from across the Middle East. Besides, I am the first Saudi in the Kingdom to have won this prestigious award,” he said. He said he has been covering news on copyright, infringement of intellectual property laws and software piracy. But his coverage of software piracy that he wrote under “Software Piracy fetches more income and is less dangerous than selling drugs” in August 2007 got the attention of the BSA award selection committee and “I am the proud winner of the prize in the category of news coverage.” He said full-page article contained information about the software pirated CDs widely available in the computer market in Riyadh. His analytical article focused on a wide range of issues including copyright laws, their implementation, software piracy and how street vendors were attracting the customers to buy the cheaper pirated CDs. “Despite strict measures the business of pirated CDs that contained all different kinds of software programs has been flourishing,” he said at a felicitation ceremony. Musaad said he was honored in Kuwait by Shaikha Rasha Bint Naif Bin Jabir Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, president of Copyright Department, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Kuwait. According to IDC's Global Piracy Report the unlicensed software cost more than $48 billion in 2007, with 38 percent of software installed onto PCs illegally. Software piracy negatively impacts software publishers, creates unfair competition for legitimate companies, damages brands through distribution of substandard products, and exposes customers to a range of IT risks. __
