UK software piracy rate shows no improvement
Channel will bear the brunt as piracy level stays at 27 per cent in 2009, IDC and BSA joint study claims
The UK was found to have the sixth-lowest piracy rate out of the countries studied
The level of software piracy in the UK has remained flat in the past year, claims a joint study by the IDC and Business Software Alliance (BSA).
According to the findings of the organisations’ seventh annual Global Piracy Study, the UK piracy rate remained unchanged between 2008 and 2009 at 27 per cent, equating to a loss of £1bn from the economy last year.
Piracy was at the same level as far back as 2006 and Michala Wardell, chair of the BSA’s UK committee, said the lack of change in the UK’s level of software piracy was both good and bad news for the channel.
“It is good that the situation has not got any worse,” she said. “But the fact remains that £1bn is still a lot of money to lose from the economy and it’s the channel that will be hit hardest because they lose sales.”
The figure marks the UK out as having the sixth lowest software piracy rate in the world. The US came top with 20 per cent, Luxembourg and Japan were joint second at 21 per cent and Denmark came third at 26 per cent.
The worst-performing countries in the survey were Georgia (95 per cent), Zimbabwe (92 per cent) and, in joint third position, Bangladesh and Moldova (91 per cent).
Overall, the worldwide piracy rate increased from 41 per cent in 2008 to 43 per cent in 2009, with the IDC attributing this to the growing number of software deployments in emerging economies, such as India, China and Brazil.
Out of the 111 countries that were included in the survey, 49 per cent showed some level of improvement in their overall piracy levels in 2009, while the situation had worsened in 17 per cent of the countries polled.
Robert Holleyman, president of the BSA, said: “The BSA/IDC Global Piracy Study shows there was some progress in the global fight against software piracy in 2009, but incremental change is not enough.
“Our report makes it very clear that governments around the world must redouble their efforts to combat software theft.”