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Combating piracy would boost GDP and jobs: IDC

Reducing the rate of software piracy in Taiwan from 41 percent by 10 percentage points could contribute as much as US$45 million (NT$1.46 billion) to government tax revenues, a report by IDC showed.

The report by IDC was done on request of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and found that if the rate of piracy were driven down to 31 percent, it would open up business opportunities for legal software operations that would contribute NT$13.4 billion to GDP.

BIG BENEFITS

The nation's business software industry generated NT$5.56 billion in 2006, an analysis from the Institute for Information Industry (資策會) showed.

If the Taiwanese piracy rate were to fall to 31 percent, the economic benefits would amount to twice the 2006 figure, IDC said.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES

In addition, the report showed, the drop in piracy would create demand for an additional 1,431 job opportunities in the IT sector.

IDC said that even though packaged software only accounted for 14 percent of the nation's IT spending last year -- estimated to be NT$198 billion -- the need for back-up services such as installation and maintenance accounted for 22 percent of the IT sector's job opportunities.

"Of the US$21 billion spent on personal computing software in 2006 in the Asian market, US$11.6 billion is estimated to be pirated," BSA vice president Jeffrey Hardee said.

"A lowering in the piracy rate would bring about great economic benefits to Asia," he said.
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