Legal Niches

BSA Report: $51.4B in Software Pirated in 2009

By pete_gallagher

Beginning by calling 2009 a 'good year in the fight against software piracy,' the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and IDC Global Software have released the pair's seventh annual look into software theft.

While the report (PDF) pegged 2009 with an overall piracy rate of 43%, up from 2008's 41%, the value of unlicensed software in 2009 was estimated at $51.4 billion, a 3% dip from 2008.

Central/Eastern Europe was labeled as the region with the highest software piracy rate at 64%, followed by Latin America (63%), Middle East/Africa and Asia-Pacific (59%), European Union (35%), Western Europe (34%) and North America (21%). All the regions listed previously declined or remained unchanged from 2008, with the exception of Western Europe, which grew one percentage point in 2009.

The countries with the highest piracy rates were Georgia (95%), Zimbabwe (92%), Bangladesh and Moldova (91%) and Armenia and Yemen and (90%).
Read More

read more

Full post as published by GamePolitics.com on May 13, 2010 (boomark / email).