Firm action sought against software piracy

The value of pirated software was around $63.4 billion worldwide in 2011, rising from $59 billion in the prior year, according to an annual study from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) released yesterday.

The study, conducted by IDC and Ipsos Public Affairs, comes as the US negotiates the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a multilateral trade deal. The private sector hopes the deal would  include tough IP enforcement provisions, a stance, which is supported by the study.

According to the BSA-funded study, the rise in pirated software last year was due to the influx of personal computer shipments to developing economies that had high piracy rates.

Around 56 per cent of new PCs were shipped to developing markets.

In most emerging markets, there was no effective sheriff in town, according to computer users themselves, BSA CEO Robert Holleyman told Politico, an Arlington, Virginia-based American political journalism organisation in an interview.

China with an illegal software market of $9 billion last year, continues to be a hub of software piracy boasting one of the highest piracy rates of the top 20 economies analysed in the study. The other so-called Bware RIC countries - Russia, India and Brazil came up behind China among the countries with the highest commercial value of pirated software last year.