Software piracy in India down by a notch;losses up at $2.7 bn

NEW DELHI: Global software makers lost an estimated $2.76 billion to illegal software trade in India, a study on Tuesday said.

According to a BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study, even as piracy in the country has seen a one point drop to 68 per cent in 2008, it has resulted in loss of billions of dollars for software majors like Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft globally.

"With the various initiatives taken by the government and the firms, piracy has gone down to 68 per cent and in the coming year also, we expect this to continue as people become more informed about licenced software," BSA Vice-President and Regional Director (Asia-Pacific) Jeffrey J Hardee told reporters afetr releasing the study.

The dollar-rupee fluctuation resulted in the increase in value terms.

Hardee also said the rapidly growing user base for assembled PC units and easy availability of pirated software on the Internet, is a major concern.

However "with software firms offering services to the SMBs and more portable PCs being shipped, piracy should come down," he added.

The study noted a rise in piracy levels globally. While it has gone up to 41 per cent globally from 38 per cent last year, piracy also remains high in the Central and Eastern Europe (66 per cent), Latin America (65 per cent) and Asia-Pacific (61 per cent).