New Delhi
May 16, 2008

Piracy of software on PC in India fell to 69 percent in 2007 from 71 percent in 2006, amid a global trend in which piracy rates dropped in most countries. However, industry losses due to software piracy in India rose to $2 billion in 2007 as compared to $1.28 billion in 2006.

These are among the findings of the fifth annual global PC software piracy study released by Business Software Alliance (BSA). The study covers 108 countries and was conducted by IDC.

“This report shows that we are making progress in the battle against software piracy, albeit slowly as compared to other nations like Russia, whose piracy rate dropped by seven points in 2007. India needs a concrete all-inclusive anti-piracy education, engagement and enforcement plan to effectively lower software piracy YoY. This could be achieved if there is a right mix of improvements at all levels, in particular, raising general public awareness, establishing specialized intellectual property rights (IPR) courts, creating uniform and equipped IPR Police Cells and fostering greater government-industry-private partnerships,” said Keshav S Dhakad, Chair, BSA India Committee. “Studies have consistently shown that reducing piracy further would deliver significant benefits for local consumers, local software and services firms, small businesses, government tax collections, and the society and economy at large,” added Dhakad.

Piracy rates in India have been on a gradual decline since the last three years. The Government of India, industry bodies and software companies, while have been taking initiatives and making efforts to curb the menace of piracy, challenges at various fronts still remain. Among the courts of the Nation, the Delhi High Court has been pro-active in attacking software piracy quite effectively. The need of the hour is for the government to make consistent efforts to see an even greater drop in piracy levels, which would greatly benefit the Indian economy and make it internationally more competitive.

Software piracy affects much more than just the industry revenues. An IDC economic impact study released in January this year found that by reducing PC software piracy in India by 10 percent over a period of four years could generate an additional 44,000 new jobs, $3.1 billion in economic growth, and $200 million in tax revenues. The study also predicted an additional $208 million in revenues to local vendors alone.

“This study shows that government and industry anti-piracy efforts are delivering software piracy reductions in many countries; however, rapid PC growth in higher-piracy emerging markets translates into an overall increase in global piracy,” said John Gantz, Chief Research Officer, IDC. “We expect this trend to continue, meaning industry and government must increasingly focus their efforts on combating piracy in these emerging economies,” said Grantz.

Key findings

• Among the 108 countries studied, PC software piracy dropped in 67 countries, and increased in only eight. However, because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide piracy rate increased by three percentage points to 38 percent in 2007.
• In Asia, the highest-piracy countries were Bangladesh (92 percent), Sri Lanka (90 percent) and Vietnam (85 percent). Among the lowest-piracy countries were Japan (23 percent), Singapore (37 percent) and Taiwan (40 percent).

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