The Business Software Alliance, representing the world's leading software developers, has called for EU action on software piracy and counterfeiting. In a letter to the European Commission, European Parliament and heads of member-states, the alliance called for adoption of a five-point plan to end the practice.

"Union and member-state governments need to act promptly and decisively to eliminate software piracy and other copyright theft. The message must be strong and clear: Software piracy - like any other crime - doesn't pay." The plan includes penalties and damages harmonised at EU level, co-ordination of anti-piracy efforts at local level, with an EU agency to handle copyright-related crime, and attacking the problem of large-volume counterfeiting at CD plants. The software piracy rate was 58 per cent for Ireland in 1998, it estimates, costing the Irish software industry around $61 million.