The rate of global software piracy has remained static for three years but the cost to businesses is rising, the US Business Software Alliance (BSA) said yesterday.
The BSA survey, conducted by the US-based market research firm IDC, concluded that for every US$2 spent on legitimate software, US$1 went to pirates.
"The bad news is that overall global piracy rates have remained stagnant," BSA chief executive Robert Holleyman said. "Overall dollar losses have gone up because the overall market is growing."
Though the piracy rate declined in 62 countries from 2005 to last year, those gains were offset by the growth in sales of computers in some of the areas most blighted by software piracy.
The Internet has become the main distribution channel for illegal software in "developed" countries because of increased broadband access, IDC said.
In emerging markets, pirated software is more commonly bought on discs, the study showed.
IDC predicts that more than US$350 billion will be spent on PC software over the next four years. In light of current market growth and piracy levels it estimates that this will result in more than US$180 billion worth of PC software being pirated.
The report claimed 35 percent of the all software installed on personal computers last year was obtained illegally.
"Government, trade bodies and business must continue to tackle software piracy aggressively if financial losses, which impact the local economy and local IT industry, are to be reduced," Holleyman said.
The EU software industry lost US$11 billion in sales last year as more than a third of new software was pirated, the study showed.
The EU software piracy rate remained at 36 percent, above the 35 percent worldwide weighted average, BSA said.
The piracy rate in western Europe was 34 percent, while the rate in central and eastern Europe was 68 percent.
"The general trend is that there has been faster progress in the accession countries in the EU in reducing piracy than there has been in some of the mature markets," Holleyman said. "I'd like to see broad awareness in the marketplace of the challenge of illegal software and I'd like to see even more aggressive enforcement of laws."
In Asia, the software piracy rate rose one percentage point to 55 percent, with Taiwan at 41 percent, Japan at 25 percent, Singapore at 39 percent and China at 82 percent, the study showed.
Taiwan's piracy rate stayed unchanged at 43 percent between 2003 and 2005. The two percentage point decline last year represented the collaboration of government enforcement and the private sector's anti-piracy campaign effort, Hongti Sung (
Holleyman said the piracy rate in China, the second-largest market for personal computers behind the US, had fallen 10 percent over three years, saving software companies an estimated US$864 million.
The report identified Armenia, Moldova and Azerbaijan as among the world's worst for software theft, saying only one in 20 programs used there was procured legally.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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