Ukraine declares a war on piracy

Date: May 19, 2004
Source: Computer Crime Research Center
By: Timofey Saytarly

ZAPORIZHZHYA (CCRC) - As the new Criminal Code of Ukraine became valid in 2001, law enforcement actively joined the fight against computer piracy. According to the data of the Information Technologies Office at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kharkiv region, Ukraine, the share of filed offences violating articles 176, 362, 363 of the CC are as the following: 6% in 2001, 36% in 2002, 45% in 2003 and 13% for the first four months of 2004

More than 25% of these crimes, in some or another way, are related to violating copyright on software. In March 2003 law enforcement brought a criminal case to court on the offence violating article 176 of the CC (selling compact disks with counterfeit products) with UAH 200 thousand (about $40 thousand) of caused damage.

This only sum, in the scale of the region, illustrates a scope of computer piracy in Ukraine. Civilians accused of such crimes, as a rule, were not prosecuted and connected to criminality earlier; the majority of them didn't reach their thirtieth, have high education.

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