Piracy passions
Date: July 24, 2004Source: Computer Crime Research Center
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More than 36% of software installed in computers worldwide are pirated, it gave the piracy revenues of $29 billion of dollars in 2003, a survey conducted by International Data Corporation for the Business Software Alliance.
They discovered that while software costing $81 billion was installed onto computers around the world, only $51 billion was actually purchased and installed legally.
The USA and Canada who jointly are the most honest when it comes to purchasing software show a software piracy rate of 23% whilst the worst offenders are within the Eastern European countries, where piracy levels are an incredible 71%. It's difficult to draw any comparisons from previous years data as this is the first year the study has been out-sourced to an independent company and takes in a wider spectrum of software than the previous studies conducted in-house by the BSA. As well as counting the number of illegally produced software programs installed on systems, the study also includes software for where an insufficient number of site licenses have been purchased.
"Software piracy continues to be a major challenge for economies worldwide," said Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of BSA. "From Algeria to New Zealand, Canada to China, piracy deprives local governments of tax revenue, costs jobs throughout the technology supply chain and cripples the local, in-country software industry."
Mr Holleyman went on to say, that the IDC study reflects a logical evolution in BSA's decade-long effort to measure piracy in the global economy. Its scope was expanded to account more accurately for trends such as the growth of local software markets worldwide and the acceleration of Internet piracy.
For its analysis, IDC drew upon its worldwide data for software and hardware shipments, conducted more than 5,600 interviews in 15 countries, and used its in-country analysts around the globe to evaluate local market conditions. IDC identified the piracy rate and dollar losses by utilizing proprietary IDC models for PC, software and license shipments by all industry vendors in 86 countries.
| Countries with Highest Piracy Rate: | |
| Vietnam | 92% |
| China | 92% |
| Ukraine | 91% |
| Indonesia | 88% |
| Zimbabwe | 87% |
| Russia | 87% |
| Algeria | 84% |
| Nigeria | 84% |
| Pakistan | 83% |
| Paraguay | 83% |
| Countries with Lowest Piracy Rate | |
| United States | 22% |
| New Zealand | 23% |
| Denmark | 26% |
| Sweden | 27% |
| Austria | 27% |
| United Kingdom | 29% |
| Japan | 29% |
| Belgium | 29% |
| Germany | 30% |
| Switzerland | 31% |
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