By Sarmad Qazi

BSA’s Jawad al-Redha
Hundreds of anti-piracy raids by authorities in Qatar resulted in 614 instances of judicial confiscation from 2000 until 2010, officials from the Intellectual Property Centre (IPC) of the Ministry of Justice said yesterday. 
The value of confiscations during the period was put at QR15mn. 
The figures formed part of a report made public by the IPC yesterday during an industry event, held in co-operation with Ministry of Interior and the Business Software Alliance (BSA).
IPC head Abdullah al-Qayed after welcoming the gathering pointed out the steps Qatar has been taking over the past decade in fighting piracy and protecting intellectual property (IP) in Qatar. “Qatar has earmarked an impressive 2.7% of its total GDP for education. This will go a long way in a society knowledgeable of its duties,” al-Qayed said. Several laws govern IP in Qatar like Law 7 of 2002, Law 30 of 2006 to Law 5 of 2005 and Law 6 of 2005, and that IPC works with the CID, customs, ictQatar and civil society to eradicate digital piracy, he said.
Between the same period (2000-2010), a total of 277 cases were registered by IPC, while 60 were categorised as “computer issue”, another 60 marked as “audio-visual issues,” 147 under street vendors, and 10 as “encryption issues”, according to the IPC report.
“The most important development was the Law 7 of 2002, on the protection of copyright and related rights, which effectively authorised legal closure of shops and of the offending companies,” the officials said.
Meanwhile, BSA Gulf chair Jawad al-Redha said safeguarding IP is a long battle, while signalling out Qatar’s efforts as satisfactory.
“When I see these efforts going on in Qatar by the MoJ, the MoI and other government bodies, it shows Qatar is serious. There are lot of impressive IP-related activities going on here in Qatar,” al-Redha told reporters on the sidelines.
BSA is the voice of the world’s commercial software industry and its hardware partners before governments and in the international marketplace.
“Qatari laws are very strict and the implementation very strong. They have their own plans. We are happy,” al-Redha added, while pointing out that BSA Gulf’s yearly target for the regional countries was to improve 2-3%. 
According to the 7th annual BSA global piracy study -- the latest available and published in May 2010, the rate of piracy in Qatar stood at 51%, a figure it shared with neighbouring Saudi Arabia, while UAE rated 36% making it the only country from the Middle East in the global top 30.  For consideration, Bahrain was 54%, Kuwait 60% and Oman 63%.
The commercial value of unlicensed software in Qatar in 2009 stood at $50mn, a significant increase from $26mn in 2008, but not much when compared to $25mn (2007), $23mn (2006) and $21mn (2005).
The latest edition of the study will be made public in May 2011, al-Redha said.