I am made to understand that the intellectual property act has been passed in Parliament without a debate and it is the law of the country. Being in the academic circles I have no qualms about the act as far as academic exercises are concerned. But as far as the computer industry is concerned I have my reservations. The intent and. purpose of this act as for Sri-Lanka is shrouded in mystery. It is nauseating to read about the pseudo-computer experts who made millions out of the ignorance of the pioneers. But same nasty intentions are prevalent in the new rich yuppies of the brown sahib era.

In the early eighties when the BBC Computer, Sinclair Computer and Amstrad Computer were making an entry into this field in England, in America Atari, Commodore and Tandy’s were making an impact. What happened to BBC and. Sinclair is history now. Unfortunately. these computers were more or less play consoles and cannot match even the present day children’s play stations. But the prices I had to ply for them were exorbitant. Books were scarce. Each little new program had to be bought for a price. The copyrights law was rigidly applied. For me money was not a problem but buying a notebook was only a dream then. Even the little electronic diaries were so expensive. I preferred the conventional diary instead. With time I lost interest in them.

Coming back to implications of this act to ordinary Sri-Lankans and I begin to realise our pseudo-politicians have lost a big trick. It could be roughly estimated that there are over 2 million computers in Sri-Lanka. There could be at least 50,000 corner shops selling pirated computer software. I have not seen a single shop selling the original versions.

What is more worrying is that there are so many computer companies and computer tutories using the pirated copies that the total number of people who are directly and indirectly violating the law would be phenomenal. The fine is said to be Rs. 500,000 and in a country where even a criminal gets bail for paltry sum, the rationale of arriving at this figure baffles me. What baffles me most is that there was no debate and even the JVP members remained numb and mum about its implications.

I believe that even some of the parliament members (who are carrying the notebooks) are violating the law they have easily passed. What shall we do to them? Perhaps not allow them to contest the next general election. Our jurisdictions are so rigorous we may be able to send few more members to jail for a sojourn.

The economic gain for the government is tremendous and if the Defence Minister could. create a special police operation unit to weed out this computer piracy menace and even if the police catch a fraction of the culprits the budget deficit can be easily balanced without a. problem. Our pseudo-economists also have missed a trick., they could have sent their pre-budget proposals to the minister and easily could have become advisors to the Central Bank and the IMF. The education ministry also should take credit for lack of planning. They have not educated the children in violating the law. If children start violating the law how can we train them to be lawyers who could become leading high profile idols?

However I have a different vision. In another 20 to 30 years from now there will be a revolution in the West. If I speak or write English I am not violating the right of the British. Computers and computer languages would become commoner garden utilities in time to come. It would become part of their lifestyle and people would not be reluvtant to any control of the use of software. They would react against the authority. What I do not understand is why we do not react to that now? Resistance to software monopoly is emerging in the West. Linux has taken a giant step. A rough estimate of mine would illustrate the problem. To just type in the kindergarten it would cost Rs. 125,000 to 200,000.