Annual harassment letter from "Pilipinas Anti Piracy"

**wowiesy** · June 9th, 2010 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by ghosthunter

But imagine if you are the brand owner, properly registered with the DTI, etc.

Your product is enjoying moderate success in the local markets.

Then you find there are people making/distributing/selling counterfeits/fakes of your product which are inferior in quality.

Typically, to protect your brand/product, you have the NBI to conduct confiscation raids on the fake products.

But you have to spend at least P200,000 for every raid done.

If you have to do five raids, that will already cost you over P1M.

It might be "cheaper" just to live with fakes in the market even if that fact will damage the product's reputation of quality.

exactly why the local IT industry will only be relegated to BPO and not have their own systems and make it big in the market...

i think the government hasn't yet seen / realized the potential revenue (direct revenue - be it in taxes, but more on the non taxes e.g. direct to their pocket) effects of the software industry... pero kung makakita sila ng pera ... sigurado.. may programa agad yan hehe

**JackFlash** · June 9th, 2010 04:41 PM

If the PAPT is serious, why don't they just visit all the computer gaming sales shops in the malls? Daming pirated software dun, ranging from Adobe to Microsoft to Anti-virus software, not to mention all the famous PC games. You don't need a warrant coz everything is in the open, you dont need to send letters because you can freely enter the premises. Cut the supply and you cut out the users. Pero...

mahina siguro kinikita ng raiding teams dun no?

**ghosthunter** · June 9th, 2010 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by JackFlash

If the PAPT is serious, why don't they just visit all the computer gaming sales shops in the malls? Daming pirated software dun, ranging from Adobe to Microsoft to Anti-virus software, not to mention all the famous PC games. You don't need a warrant coz everything is in the open, you dont need to send letters because you can freely enter the premises. Cut the supply and you cut out the users. Pero...

mahina siguro kinikita ng raiding teams dun no?

Simple answer. PAPT doesn't want to pay for it's own raid operations.

If the raided computer game shops find it more expensive to pay the fine to get their computers released from the NBI warehouse, they would probably just close shop and open with new equiptment elsewhere.

**ess** · June 9th, 2010 05:36 PM

OT: I was wondering... are the raiding teams educated enough to distinguish between Windows and Linux running KDE or Gnome? MS Office vs Open Office or KOffice?
I've seen KDE skins that almost look indistinguishable from XP's luna or W7's Aero theme.

Baka pag ni-raid ka:

You: Hindi yan MS Office! OpenOffice yan!
PAPT Agent: Office yan eh. Tignan mo pareho yung toolbar oh.

**ghosthunter** · June 9th, 2010 05:42 PM

Originally Posted by ess

OT: I was wondering... are the raiding teams educated enough to distinguish between Windows and Linux running KDE or Gnome? MS Office vs Open Office or KOffice?
I've seen KDE skins that almost look indistinguishable from XP's luna or W7's Aero theme.

Baka pag ni-raid ka:

You: Hindi yan MS Office! OpenOffice yan!
PAPT Agent: Office yan eh. Tignan mo pareho yung toolbar oh.

Yes, there will be an "expert" with them, usually from the complainant company.

And if the raiding team is already knocking at your door, it's too late to argue.

Best to make it look like LINUX if seen from the door so passing people (potential "witness") will mistake it for LINUX and not see (unlicensed) Windows. This avoids getting the raided from getting started.

**JackFlash** · June 9th, 2010 06:11 PM

On raiding retail outlets (OT)...

At the height of the VRB raids headed by Edu Manzano... I was once in Makati Cinema Sq. buying dibidi's when I asked my suki about the raids and how they were coping. He said that they had look-outs posted at the mall entrances. The power of texting helped them conceal their goods.

How were the goods concealed? A fake shelf would swing into place, covering the dibidi's.

What kind of merchandise was displayed on the fake shelves? Fake Gucci, Nike, Adidas, Guess t-shirts and blouses, of course.

**digitalron** · June 10th, 2010 10:09 AM

I get the same letters almost every year. The even funnier bit is that it is directed to my name... maybe because I head the IT department in our company, hehe. I'm sure they got their database info from the vendors we deal with.

An also funny bit is that we have been purchasing hundreds of licenses of the various software products, yet despite that fact, we still receive these "warning" letters. For us, it's not really scary as we are very much above board. This is important to us because we are a publicly-listed company in the London Stock Exchange and our compliance requirements are very stringent. It is a bit of a nuisance though as we need to pull out records, assign some of our staff to liaise with the "audit" teams, and essentially spend time we could have used for more productive tasks.

But, year in and year out, we get this and similar letters. In fact, it used to be the BSA (Business Software Alliance) that sends those letters. Apparently, the OMB has taken over.

Just be prepared. Our practice has been to set aside copies of our invoices and paper licenses (since we purchase heavily using Open Licensing), and we have also made it a practice to only purchase PCs with Windows OEM so that we avoid the hassle of too much software licenses to track.

BTW, the way these raids are carried out has this for their modus operandi: a lot of it is fishing expeditions. The bigger companies are raided because they have the money to purchase licenses. So when a company is "raided" the records are tallied to see if the correct number of licenses are purchased for the physically accounted PCs; if not, an agreement is made to purchase the missing license. Adobe and Autodesk seem to be the most aggressive in this aspect simply because their licenses are really expensive, running to the hundreds of thousands of pesos per license.

So just be prepared with your records and all should be alright.

**sgt_taga** · June 10th, 2010 10:33 AM

no need to worry about such letters if you are properly covered - complete and matching inventory of licenses vs. actuals rolled out, clear records, audit trails, etc. let them visit if they want. wala naman silang mapapala at magsasayang lang sila ng oras. its all part of the perils of doing business here (and maybe elsewhere).

if you're not properly covered, then remediate as soon as possible and best not to risk the consequences. baka i-call pa nila yung "bluff" nila.

**Lucius** · June 10th, 2010 04:38 PM

We received the same letter few months back. I called someone. That someone called someone. Someone from OMB apologized. Coordinated pa daw yan with NBI blah blah..who cares?

Nothing will change here in our country. Takutan lang yan. We're doing good business for decades then suddenly these posers would harass us? **** off.

Ang sabi nung tao, minsan inggit lang daw. May nag-tip na keso fake daw ang OS blah blah. So yun, right now we're waiting nalang para malaman kung sino ang 3 tao na "nagsumbong"