The computer software piracy rate in Taiwan fell for the fourth year in a row last year, placing it third among countries in Asia with the lowest piracy rates, a study said yesterday.
Software piracy in Taiwan dropped to 38 percent last year, a decrease of 1 percentage point from a year earlier, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) — an international association representing the global software industry — said in a statement.
Topping the list of Asian countries with the lowest violation rate was Japan with 21 percent, followed by Singapore with 35 percent, said the seventh annual study conducted by market researcher IDC for the BSA.
The study tracked 111 economies across the globe.
Despite the drop, the 38 percent of unlicensed software translates to a loss of US$227 million for Taiwan’s industry as a whole. The loss is a record high in five years, the statement read.
“BSA will continue to engage with government, businesses and consumers to make public the risks of using unlicensed software, and the true impact that software piracy has on Taiwan’s economy,” BSA Taiwan co-chair Tony Chi (季建廷) said in the statement.
On a global scale, the piracy rate rose to 43 percent last year from 41 percent in 2008, causing a total loss of US$51.4 billion.
BSA cited exponential growth in PC software deployments in emerging economies, such as Brazil, China and India, as the factor behind the rise in piracy.
IDC estimates that for every dollar of legitimate software sold in a country, another US$3 to US$4 in revenues would be generated for the domestic industry.
The US, Japan, and Luxembourg continued to hold the lowest piracy rates of all countries and regions surveyed, with the US rating 20 percent, followed by Japan and Luxembourg with 21 percent each.
Meanwhile, countries with the highest piracy rates included Georgia, Zimbabwe and Moldova, where piracy rates reached more than 90 percent.
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