PC software piracy cost vendors $34 billion in 2005

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 23 May 2006 19:18

Your IT - Home IT

A new study has found that 35% of the packaged software installed on personal computers (PC) worldwide in 2005 was illegal, amounting to $34 billion in global losses due to software piracy.  However, positive movement in a number of markets indicates education and enforcement efforts are paying off in emerging economies such as China, Russia and India and in Central/Eastern Europe and the Middle East & Africa.

These are among the findings of an annual global PC software piracy study released today by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the international association of global software developers.  The independent study was conducted by IT research firm IDC.

The BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study covers all packaged software that runs on PCs.  The study does not include other types of software such as that which runs on mainframes or servers or software sold as a service.  IDC used proprietary statistics for software and hardware shipments, conducted 5,600 surveys and enlisted IDC analysts in 38 countries to confirm software piracy trends.

“Many factors contribute to regional differences in piracy – the strength of intellectual property protection, the availability of pirated software, cultural differences and IT-related market trends,” said John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC.  “There’s no doubt that lowering software piracy takes constant work and investment, but those investments can unlock enormous benefits for the industry and local economies.”