BSA claims piracy at record levels

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 12 May 2011 15:30

IT Industry - Strategy

The Business Software Alliance reckons software piracy is at record levels in Australia. And we're not alone - worldwide rates are the second highest since the Alliance's Piracy Study began.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) basically exists to discourage the use of unlicensed commercial software through public education (some might say propaganda) and lobbying governments and international bodies.

The term 'piracy' is a loaded one, but we'll go with it since we're talking about the 2010 Piracy Study.

According to the survey - conducted in association with IDC - 24% of the software deployed on PCs during the year was pirated. If it had been purchased, software vendors would have chalked up an extra $US658 million, the study's authors concluded. This is the largest figure ascribed to the Australian market since the study started.

But the percentage is steadily falling. In 2006 it was 29%, dropping to 28%, 26%, 25% and now 24% in consecutive years.

There's always going to be an argument about what proportion of unlicensed usage would ever convert to sales, but what is interesting is that the 24% figure does allow for freeware and open source software. If only commercial software was considered, the percentage would have been even higher.

On a world scale, Australia is relatively well behaved. The global piracy rate is 42%, with an implied value of $US59 billion.

Where is the most piracy happening? Find out on page 2.