Software Pirates Take Cover
Software Pirates Take Cover
May 16, 2007: The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has welcomed the Federal Governments commitment to spend $12.4 million for fighting intellectual property crime over the next two years, but says Australia still has an ‘unacceptable’ 29 percent software piracy rate.
The Australian division of the BSA made the joint announcement with the Music Industry Piracy investigations (MIPI) who says that when it comes to music piracy, the issue can affect the entire music industry and potentially hold back emerging talent.
Australia’s software piracy rate has been obtained through studies on the total amount of software installed on Australian PCs in 2006. While illegally obtained software installed amounted to an ‘unacceptable’ 29 percent, it was actually a drop from the 31 percent piracy rate reported in 2005 but still a $622 million blow to the industry.
The piracy rates comes from an independent report by IDC who annually studies the market across the globe to detect in order to detect the problem, and progress made by Governments in tackling it.
Overall, the BSA says the two percent reduction in piracy is good initial progress for Australia, but a figure close to 30 percent is still unacceptable. “No other industry has to operate with almost one third of its products illegally copied or sourced,” says Jim Macnamara, spokesperson for the BSA.
“We have to recognise that Australia is part of a global economy and thus address IP issues in an internationally consistent way, in concert with our trading partners,” says Macnamara. “We believe the IP initiatives announced by the Attorney General last week are particularly relevant, certainly needed and overall a very good step forward for Australia.”
Software piracy rates continued to average around 35 percent across the globe in IDC’s 5th annual report, but progress was made in notorious markets like China and Russia where rates actually dropped between three and seven percent.
The BSA says it is also working to offer specialised training for businesses to understand the complexities of IP and how it affects the industry.