The Bahrain ministry of information has scored another victory in the co-ordinated campaign against software piracy by successfully raiding two resellers who were allegedly loading computers with pirated Microsoft software.

The raid, which led to the seizure of two computers, once again reaffirmed Bahrain’s proactive stance against software piracy and its commitment to becoming a regional and international IT hub.

The resellers, based in Manama, were both found to be in possession of a desktop PC preinstalled with a pirated copy of the Microsoft Windows XP operating system.

The latest raid follows a month after the ministry supervised the public destruction of thousands of unlicensed CDs.

'We commend local authorities for carefully planning the raids and making sure that the resellers were unaware of our plans,' said Jawad Al Redha, Business Software Alliance (BSA) co-chairman in the Middle East.

BSA is the leading global organisation that is the voice of the world's commercial software industry.

'This is how we want to present our anti-piracy efforts: swift, frequent and uncompromising. This will hopefully discourage more individuals and groups from assuming that they can easily get away with such illegal activities in Bahrain,' he remarked.

In January 2008, the Bahrain ministry of information co-hosted a successful anti-piracy roadshow as part of regional initiatives to broaden public awareness about the negative impact of crimes against intellectual property rights on society and the economy.

Jamal Dawood, director of publication, Bahrain ministry of information said: “Prior to this event, the ministry signed a landmark MoU with the Business Software Alliance and its hardware partners before governments and in the international marketplace.”

'Software piracy is a socioeconomic menace that needs to be tackled by coordinated, sustained and committed efforts from government, the private sector, and concerned groups and individuals.'

'This raid proves this point, that we have to be united in our stand against intellectual property rights violations. We thank the Bahrain Government for its full support of anti-piracy activities, and the local authorities as well for making sure that offenders are caught,” Al Redha added.-TradeArabia News Service