Autodesk’s battle against pirates will sadly not involve scenes like these
In an exciting morning that had us sat reading the news out in the sunshine (it counts as work, honest), we stumbled across a tale from across the high seas, where the good ship Autodesk is waging war on pirates.
Autodesk has launched an amnesty period for users of pirated software in Nigeria to move over to legal versions of AutoCAD and related software products. Legal AutoCAD-family software is being made available from as little as $199 (a massive 89 per cent discount when compared to US pricing) until July 15, as a pro-active move to curb illegal distribution.
The Nigerian economy loses roughly $500 million to software piracy each year, but is such a move by Autodesk going to have any great effect on this?
“In a recent research conducted by the Business Software Alliance, most Autodesk customers in Africa would prefer to buy licensed software, but often don’t know where to find it,” said sales director of Autodesk Africa’s distribution partner, WorldsView Technologies, Richard Smedley-Williams, pouring a jerry-can of petrol over a heap of counterfeit AutoCAD disks.
Tossing a match onto the bonfire, he continued: “As a result, they resort to pirated copies which don’t carry any of the benefits associated with buying valid licensed software, including after sales support and regular upgrades.”
