Software piracy costs computer industry over $25 billion a year

SANCTIONS should be imposed on countries that fail to enforce anti-computer software piracy measures, the chairman and chief executive of McAfee, one of the leading security software companies in the world said yesterday.

George Samenuk, speaking at the opening of his company’s new Irish operations centre in Cork, said software piracy was costing the computer software industry over $25 billion a year in lost revenues.

“We think there should be very strict penalties against countries that don’t enforce anti-piracy measures up to a point where countries like the US should block imports from those countries that advocate and encourage piracy.”

Tougher measures should also be taken against computer hackers, he said. Recently in Washington Mr Samenuk along with other CEOs lobbied the US government for greater sentencing for convicted hackers.

“It astonishes me that if you steal from a computer system virtually nothing happens to you, but if you physically steal from a bank you go to jail.”

Hackers were no longer attacking computers for sport they were now doing it more and more for financial gain, he said, adding that computers around the world were being bombarded with virus and spyware attacks every minute of every day.

McAfee employs 86 people in its new operation at Little Island.

This is expected to grow to 150 over three years. The company moved its European operations centre from Amsterdam to Cork eight months ago and is currently examining the possibility of setting up a research and development operation here.

Mr Samenuk said both the IDA and Ireland’s 12.5% corporation tax were instrumental in McAfee’s decision to locate in Ireland.

“I was very impressed when the IDA came to see me in California and talked about the benefits of coming to Ireland,” he said.

Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin described McAfee’s decision to locate in Ireland as a major coup for the country and said it enhanced Ireland’s reputation as a global centre for software and Internet security.

Mr Samenuk said he was very impressed with the successful start-up of the centre, in particular, with the high number of staff who already have industry background and experience.