Andre Yoskowitz
11 May 2010 20:13
According to the latest Business Software Alliance (BSA) report, pirates cost software companies over $50 billion USD in 2009, with Asian nations accounting for a large amount of those losses.
Despite increases in anti-piracy efforts, 43 percent of all software being used on computers right now is pirated, up from 41 percent in 2008, reads the report.
Globally, losses mounted to $51.4 billion, with a whopping $16.5 billion coming from the Asia-Pacific region.
Overall, the BSA says the increase in piracy is thanks to the strong growth of PC owners in India, China and Brazil.
Victor Lim, a VP at IDC (which jointly carried out the study with the BSA) says that despite pirates software rates falling in 54 nations, it rose or stayed neutral in 57. Piracy rate in the Asia-Pacific territories was 59 percent, meaning that of of the 900 million pieces of commercial software installed in 2009, 530 million were unlicensed.
"This study makes clear that while efforts to bring down piracy levels in the Asia-Pacific are enjoying some success, dollar losses at over 16.5 billion (dollars) remain the highest in the world," adds Jeffrey Hardee, BSA's vice president and regional director. "This is unacceptable and there is still much to be done to engage governments, businesses and consumers on the risks and impact of software piracy."
Some of the piracy rates for individual nations were shocking, especially in Eastern Europe were nations like Georgia, Moldova and Armenia all had over 90 percent. On the other end, the United States was the lowest on the list, at 20 percent, with Japan and Australia not far behind.