The real pain of piracy

Yirrell: Piracy figures add up in an alarming way

Last week the Business Software Alliance released its sixth annual joint report with IDC on global piracy levels, and the UK’s rate stands at 27 per cent.

This has jumped by less than half a per cent from the previous year, but the fact that it is still increasing is worrying.

I know that CRN has been banging the anti-piracy drum week after week, year after year, but dozens of channel firms are caught selling illegal software every year.

There is also the argument that because of the ever-increasing scale of the market, piracy will always grow, but it cost the legitimate economy £1.49bn in 2008.

This of course affects the channel because it loses out on vital revenue.

However, I also heard some alarming statistics from other industries ­ the music industry lost £180m to piracy in 2008, the gaming software market lost £350m, the audiovisual/film industry lost £500m and the clothing and footwear industry lost a whopping £3.5bn to counterfeiters.

When put into the context of costs to the taxpayers and the amount of jobs this money could create, this truly is frightening.

It is human nature to want a bargain, but if more of us stopped and thought of the consequences of supporting counterfeiting criminals by buying cheap, fake products, it might just stop us in our tracks.

Sara Yirrell is editor of CRN ­ sara.yirrell@incisivemedia.com