The Indian software industry lost about two billion dollars of revenue this year due to use of pirated software, a study has said.
NEW DELHI: The Indian software industry lost about two billion dollars of revenue this year due to use of pirated software, a study has said.
A study by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international association representing the global software industry, showed that though computer software piracy rates in India declined, the country still registered losses to the tune of 2 billion dollars in 2007 in monetary terms, compared to 1.28 billion dollar in 2006.
Piracy of software on personal computers (PC) in India has come down to 69 percentage points for 2007, toeing the global trend in which piracy rates dropped in most countries, the study said.
The software piracy menace has been haunting the major software developers like Microsoft.
Microsoft (India) Managing Director Neelam Dhawan had earlier said the industry is losing a large share of its revenue due to circulation of pirated software.
It has also acted as an dampener for the local software firms for developing applications.
"There are less Indian success stories of software applications being adopted on a large scale as India has a high piracy rate and therefore Indian companies do not make money," an industry expert said.
Software piracy affects much more than just the industry revenues, it even hits the job market and eventually the country's economic growth.
An IDC economic impact study released in January this year found that by reducing PC software piracy in India by 10 percentage points over a period of four years could generate an additional 44,000 new jobs, 3.1 billion dollars in economic growth, and 200 million dollar in tax revenues.
The study predicted an additional 208 million dollars in revenues for local vendors alone.
"Studies have consistently shown that reducing piracy further would deliver significant benefits for local consumers, local software and services firms, small businesses, government tax collections, and the society and economy at large," Keshav S Dhakad, Chair of the BSA India Committee said.
However, India did better in battling piracy than some of its neighboring countries such Bangladesh (92 per cent), Sri Lanka (90 per cent), which were listed among the highest- piracy countries in Asia, the report added.
The study covering 108 countries said because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide piracy rate increased by three percentage points to 38 per cent in 2007.
The BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study covers piracy of all packaged software that runs on personal computers, including desktops, laptops, and ultra-portables.
The study does not include other types of software such as server- or mainframe-based software.
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