A study of 108 countries conducted by International Data Corp (IDC) — and the results released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) in their fifth-annual study on global software piracy — shows the use of pirated software dropped in 67 countries and in just eight countries did the piracy rate increase.
On the fifth annual BSA and IDC global software piracy study shows that although piracy of software on personal computers (PC) declined in many countries in 2007, fast growing PC markets in some of the world’s highest piracy nations caused overall numbers to worsen — a trend that is expected to continue. Moreover, dollar lossesfrom piracy rose by $8 billion to nearly $48 billion.

Of the 108 countries included in the report, the use of pirated software dropped in 67 countries, and rose in only eight countries. However, because the worldwide PC market grew fastest in high-piracy countries, the worldwide PC software piracy rate increased by three percentage points to 38% from 35% in 2007.

"The latest Global Software Piracy Study by BSA and IDC indicates that global piracy has increased largely because of the unprecedented growth of the IT industry in areas where there are no committed efforts to control piracy. The spread of internet has likewise contributed to the current situation as access to pirated software has moved from the streets to the internet.", said Jawad Al Redha, Co-Chairman of BSA.

2007 PC Software Piracy Rankings

The Business Software Alliance ranks the countries where software piracy is the worst for PC software vendors, and those where conditions are best.

The Worst Piracy Rates Countries

93%
Armenia (93%)
92%
Bangladesh (92%)
92%
Azerbaijan (92%)
92%
Moldova (92%)
91%
Zimbabwe (91%)

The Best Piracy Rates Countries

20%
United States (20%)
21%
Luxembourg (21%)
22%
New Zealand (22%)
23%
Japan (23%)
25%
Austria (25%)

A recent IDC study conducted for BSA found that reducing software piracy by ten percentage points over four years could deliver billions in economic growth and hundreds of thousands of new jobs.