Moscow Is Paradise For Computer Software Pirates 09/20/95
MOSCOW, RUSSIA, 1995 SEP 20 (NB) -- There are few historical monuments
which attract so much interest from tourists and locals alike as an
inconspicuous park not far from Kutozovovy avenue in Moscow. Despite
the fact that this place is practically on the edge of Moscow, more
than 1,000 visitors frequent the location every weekend.

That is because, in the park can be found an illegal market for compact
disks, videocassettes, and computer software -- and everything at some
of the lowest prices in the world.

Windows 95, which Microsoft reportedly has yet to patent, can be
purchased, in a Russian version, for only US$4.

Russian pirate companies churn out billions of pirated CD disks
each year. On the black market you can find, for just $4, everything
from the soundtrack of the film Forrest Grump, to the CD version
of Webster's expanded English dictionary. Currently there does not
exist any law which would outlaw these pirates.

If the government would start to give someone problems, they
would have to answer to their own actions in the first place,
said Alexej Novikov, of the computer company Berton. Observers claim
that virtually all offices, schools, government offices, and even
the Kremlin are equipped with text and graphics editors from the
black market.

Novikov has worked in the area already for more than 30 years.
He remembers the beginnings of Russian electronics, when computers
filled an entire production hall and had computing power of little
more than a handheld calculator.

By the time experts in the Soviet Union came to know what a computer
was all about, there were already 1,000 programs in the West. This
is why there came into being, within the structure of the KGB, a
special computer division of industrial spies whose agents had the
responsibility of deciphering foreign software. In this way, they
created a real programming elite, claimed Novikov.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, many of these elite programmers
completely lost there work. Some argue that, the growth of inflation
and the overall fall of the economy resulted in experts working for
less and less pay. One way to exit from the crisis was to contract
with a pirate company and receive good pay, sources claim.

(Steven Slatem/19950920)