Microsoft joins new anti-piracy alliance

Industry unites against pirates and counterfeiters

Chief executives from a wide range of industries have joined together to form an action group against software pirates and counterfeiters.

Members of Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP) include Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, Nestlé and EMI.

The group said that it has recognised that criminal gangs pirating software are often the same groups that counterfeit a whole range of non-IT related goods.

BASCAP is coordinated by the Chamber of Commerce in Paris and will begin by collating case studies on the damage caused by piracy and counterfeiting before publishing its own indices to measure the problem and stimulate government action.

At a launch yesterday the group cited estimates from Interpol that intellectual property theft costs industry £350bn a year.

The group held back from naming and shaming countries deemed to be centres of piracy, but admitted that new digital technologies had given counterfeiters the upper hand.