Taiwan’s rate of PC software piracy has dropped below the world average for the first time, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) said in a press release yesterday.
The software piracy rate in Taiwan declined to 39 percent last year from 40 percent in 2007, giving Taiwan the third-lowest rate in Asia, while the world average stood at 41 percent last year, an annual survey by the BSA and industry research firm IDC showed.
In the region, Japan had the lowest rate, at 21 percent, followed by Singapore at 36 percent, the alliance said.
The estimated economic losses for the software industry caused by the use of pirated programs dropped 7 percent to US$200 million in Taiwan last year from US$215 million in 2007, it added.
“The 1 percentage point drop in software piracy last year reflected growing public awareness of intellectual property protection and the effectiveness of the government’s continued legal enforcement of anti-piracy measures,” said Sung Hong-ti (宋紅媞), co-chair of the the BSA’s Taiwan Committee.
“But the nation still has room to improve compared with Japan and Singapore,” Sung said.
The study found that Bangladesh was the biggest culprit in the region last year with a piracy rate of 92 percent, followed by Sri Lanka at 90 percent and Pakistan at 86 percent.
In China, the average piracy rate dropped to 80 percent last year from 82 percent in 2007, according to the BSA.
The average piracy rate was 61 percent in the Asia-Pacific region last year, up 2 percentage points from 59 percent in the previous year, driven by rapid growth in computer sales and the availability of bootleg programs online, the survey showed.
This caused legal software vendors to lose US$15.26 billion last year, up 8.3 percent from US$14.09 billion the previous year, according to the study.
The global average of unlicensed software increased to 41 percent last year from 38 percent the previous year, causing losses of almost US$53 billion, the study said.
“This increase in the average piracy rate is attributed to the mathematical outcome of more rapid growth of PC markets in economies of higher piracy rates,” BSA vice president and regional director Jeffrey Hardee said.
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