Global dollar losses due to piracy rise by 19pc

[Chewy_fox]

In the past eight years, the world's software piracy rate for commercial business software has declined from 49 per cent to 39 per cent.

Global dollar losses due to software piracy increased by 19 per cent last year to $13 billion, reflecting larger losses in a de-pressed software market, according to the eighth annual Business Software Alliance Global Soft-ware Piracy Study released yesterday.

"The continued downturn, the associated smaller software shipments, and slightly lower piracy rates were more than offset by generally higher software prices," said Jawad Al Redha, BSA co-chairman, Middle East.

" Despite the progress in lowering the piracy rate over the period, piracy continues to pose challenges for the software industry. There was no significant drop in piracy rates from 2001 to 2002.

"The North America, Middle East/Africa and Latin American regions all experienced slight piracy rate decreases," he said.

"Eastern Europe, at 71 per cent, has once again recorded the highest piracy rate, and it has been the case in every study since 1994. Every country except Zimbabwe has reduced its rate of software piracy since 1994.

Last year's world piracy rate also marks the first decline of the piracy rate over the previous year since the low percentage of 36 set in 1999.

"The international piracy rate has decreased every year since 1994 until it increased in two consecutive years – 2000 and 2001.

"The 2002 loss in revenue is only slightly larger than the $12.35 billion loss in 1994. Over the last eight years, reductions in the price of software and the rate of software piracy have largely offset growth in the software market."

Losses in the Asia/Pacific region rose to over $5 billion for the first time, surpassing all the regions with the highest losses.

"In the United States, the piracy rate declined to 23 per cent last year. This is the lowest rate of any country, but still represents a dollar loss of nearly $2 billion, the second highest after China.

"Japan's 35 per cent piracy rate resulted in the third-largest dollar loss in 2002 at $1.5 billion, " he said.

The Global Software Piracy Study is conducted by the International Planning and Research Corporation annually in six regions – the Middle East and Africa; Latin America, Western Europe; Eastern Europe; Asia/Pacific and North America.

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