The new law makes it a criminal offence for a person or company to obtain a commercial advantage from unlicensed or pirated software. Offenders face a fine of up to S$20,000 (US$12,250) and six months in jail.
These stiffer penalties have led to brisk sales for software vendors in the past few months, as businesses rushed to comply.
According to Adobe Systems, licensing revenues have already doubled midway into its fiscal first quarter, compared to the full quarter a year ago.
Sun Microsystems has also seen sales of the StarOffice 7 suite retail packs and corporate licenses swell by 45 percent and 75 percent respectively.
"When companies enquired, they were concerned about the availability of stocks and delivery times, and whether we were able to ship by Dec. 31," said Loo Pei Fen, marcom executive, Challenger Technologies. Challenger, a retailer of computer products, reported a 10 percent rise in direct sales to corporate customers in December.
Macromedia and Microsoft, which offered large discounts to further encourage businesses to go legal, added that sales of its products have been "overwhelming". Microsoft announced recently that it will require customers to verify that their copy of Windows is genuine before they can download updates.
"Many organizations have used this new law change as an opportunity to review their current software needs and taken the opportunity to boost their employee productivity, maximize collaboration and improve IT security," said Andy Zupsic, managing director of Microsoft Singapore.
Last July, a study commissioned by the Business Software Alliance estimated that piracy in Asia-Pacific was costing the software industry US$7.5 billion in losses. The piracy rate in Singapore was 43 percent, above the global average of 36 percent.
A total of 315 raids comprising both trademark and copyright infringements were conducted by the Singapore Police Force between January and December 2004, revealed a police spokesperson. From these, a total of about 620,000 infringing articles, with a market value of S$12.6 million (US$7.7 million), were seized.
"The police have taken a serious view of intellectual property right violations and will continue to take sustained and proactive action against these violations," said ASP Victor Keong, senior relations officer, Singapore Police Force.
Malaysia also plans to review its Copyright Act next week, tightening penalties for those caught making and distributing pirated software.
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