Software piracy costs $50 bn in 2008: BSA

San Francisco, May 13: A study by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) reveals that software piracy cost companies more than $50 billion in 2008 alone. The study estimated that pirated software accounted for 41 pc of all software installations globally, compared to 44 percent legitimate commercial software. The remaining 15 percent of software was free or open source.

The BSA study said that piracy rate was lower in United States, Japan, New Zealand and Luxembourg, near to 20 pc. Up to 90 pc software piracy was reported in countries like Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia and Zimbabwe. China's piracy rate was 80 percent.

Highest rate of illegal software use was tracked in Central and Eastern Europe. North America had the lowest piracy rate at 21 percent, followed by Western Europe with 33 percent.

OneIndia News