According to the latest Business Software Alliance (BSA) report, pirates cost software companies over $50 billion USD in 2009, with Asian nations accounting for a large amount of those losses.
Despite increases in anti-piracy efforts, 43 percent of all software being used on computers right now is pirated, up from 41 percent in 2008, reads the report.
Globally, losses mounted to $51.4 billion, with a whopping $16.5 billion coming from the Asia-Pacific region.
Overall, the BSA says the increase in piracy is thanks to the strong growth of PC owners in India, China and Brazil.
Victor Lim, a VP at IDC (which jointly carried out the study with the BSA) says that despite pirates software rates falling in 54 nations, it rose or stayed neutral in 57. Piracy rate in the Asia-Pacific territories was 59 percent, meaning that of of the 900 million pieces of commercial software installed in 2009, 530 million were unlicensed.
“This study makes clear that while efforts to bring down piracy levels in the Asia-Pacific are enjoying some success, dollar losses at over 16.5 billion (dollars) remain the highest in the world,” adds Jeffrey Hardee, BSA’s vice president and regional director. “This is unacceptable and there is still much to be done to engage governments, businesses and consumers on the risks and impact of software piracy.”
Some of the piracy rates for individual nations were shocking, especially in Eastern Europe were nations like Georgia, Moldova and Armenia all had over 90 percent. On the other end, the United States was the lowest on the list, at 20 percent, with Japan and Australia not far behind.
Result for: piracy rate
Beijing’s leading Intermediate People’s Court has ruled today that Microsoft must immediately cease sales of the Chinese versions of Windows 98, 2000, 2003 and XP after it was found that the OSs include fonts created by a local Chinese company, violating licensing agreements.
The ruling should cause a precedent in the region. “(Chinese firms) are going to think of China as a place to have their own litigation strategy, I think that’s a trend that’s coming,” says Michael Vella, head of China litigation and intellectual property rights at Morrison & Foerster LLP. “We saw it in Taiwan. At first, Taiwanese companies were always on the defensive, and in recent years we have seen them initiating litigation.”
The ruling specifically stated that Microsoft violated licensing agreements with Zhongyi Electronic, the company which had designed the Chinese character fonts.
Microsoft is prepared to appeal. “Microsoft respects intellectual property rights. We use third party IPs only when we have a legitimate right to do so,” read a company press release.
Overall however, the decision will likely not affect Microsoft’s bottom line in any way, given the high (80 percent-plus) piracy rates of the operating systems in China and the age of the operating systems in question.
Result for: piracy rate
Back in May we reported that the latest edition in the blockbuster franchise The Sims had been leaked to P2P, a full 15 days before its official release date.
According to BigChampagne data figures, the piracy rates for the game were very high as well, seeing 180,000 downloads in its first four days of availability.
It appears that the leak is doing nothing to hamper sales however, as Electronic Arts has announced today that the game has sold over 1.4 million units in its first week of availability.
The sales are combined for both the Windows and Mac editions, and the publisher says the game is having the best PC launch ever in company’s history.
“With more than a dozen press awards, strong reviewer scores and positive feedback from The Sims community, we are thrilled with the success of The Sims 3 launch and the early sales indicate that we have another hit on our hands,” added EA Play Label boss Rod Humble.
“The volume of items created with The Sims 3 and downloaded online is a testament to how passionate The Sims players are. It’s their world now, we can’t wait to see everything players create and share.”
EA also noted that the iPhone/iPod Touch version of the game was a raging success as well, hitting the top spot in the App Store’s Top Paid App list in just under 18 hours.
“The game’s sales success along with its strong critical acclaim demonstrates that The Sims 3 mobile experience is a worldwide hit with our customers,” concluded EA Mobile VP of worldwide publishing Adam Sussman.
