Kamal Chopra, general secretary of the association, said use of pirated software at businesses is not allowed under Indian Copyright Act. Under this Act, a person/company using pirated software can be tried under both civil and criminal law. The minimum jail term for software copyright infringement is seven days, and the maximum jail term is three years. Statutory fines range from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh.
Parveen Aggarwal, president OPA said, “To encourage the members to purchase original software, the association has decided to reimburse Rs 10,000 to a member on his first purchase of any original software for business purposes.”
He added that OPA is the only association in India to propagate the message of using legal software with financial support to the member.