South Asian Business news and information

Daily Mirror reports:

“The region’s average PC software piracy rate in 2007 increased to 59% of the software in use in the region from 55% in the previous year,” said the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which works to fight piracy. Losses from software piracy in the region also rose to more than 14 billion US dollars in 2007 from almost 12 billion dollars in 2006, the BSA said as it released a global study of the problem.

The BSA's members include Microsoft, Apple, McAfee and other major industry players.

The Alliance says that piracy includes illegal manufacture, the retail sale of pirated software, unauthorised downloading or uploading, and the use of unlicensed software by businesses. BSA's vice president and regional director, Jeffrey Hardee said the Asia-Pacific market for PC software is growing rapidly as incomes rise in emerging economies.

The high growth rate for PC sales in countries such as China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, which have large populations, is resulting in a higher loss from piracy compared with mature markets, he said.

Software piracy is nothing new in South Asian countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, India. The main argument for software piracy is that most of the personal computer users do not have the money to buy the expensive original softwares. However, the painful truth is because of software piracy, the IT sector could not thrive in these countries. Though India has a developed IT sector, this is due to outsourcing. Most of the Indian IT firms work for various western companies. Till now, I have not heard of any Indian IT company that produces software and market them in India. Seeing the acute problem of software piracy, no company wants to come forward and produce software. Government of these countries should come forward and take necessary steps to stop piracy. At the same time, I would like to say that big companies like Microsoft should start making software that are not so expensive.

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