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Archived updates for Wednesday, July 07, 2004

BSA Study Finds 36 Percent of World's Software is Pirated

According to a study released today by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international association of the world's leading software manufacturers, "Thirty-six percent of the software installed on computers worldwide was pirated in 2003, representing a loss of nearly $29 billion." Among the other key findings:

- The piracy rate in the Asia/Pacific region was 53 percent, with dollar losses totaling more than $7.5 billion.
- In Eastern Europe, the piracy rate was 71 percent, with dollar losses at more than $2.1 billion.
- In Western Europe, the rate was 36 percent, and dollar losses totaled $9.6 billion.
- The average rate across Latin American countries was 63 percent, with losses totaling nearly $1.3 billion.
- In the Middle Eastern and African countries, the rate was 56 percent on average, with losses totaling more than $1 billion.
- In North America, the piracy rate was 23 percent. The losses totaled more than $7.2 billion.

“A number of factors contribute to the regional differences in piracy, including local-market size, the availability of pirated software, the strength of copyright laws, and cultural differences regarding intellectual property rights,� said John Gantz, Chief Research Officer. “Unfortunately, we found that high market growth regions also tend to be high piracy regions, such as China, India and Russia. If the piracy rate in emerging markets – where people are rapidly integrating computers into their lives and businesses – does not drop, the worldwide piracy rate will continue to increase.�
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