Lost Revenues from Software Piracy Enough to Hire 25,000 Police Officers - BSA

WASHINGTON, DC - The theft and use of illegal personal computer software is well above the national average in some of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing states, while the impacts are serious and wide-ranging, according to the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

These are among the findings of the 2007 State Piracy Study, released on July 16, 2008 by the BSA, an international association representing the software industry and its hardware partners.

The national average for software piracy in 2007 was 20%, meaning that one in five pieces of PC software in use in the United States was unlicensed.

States with piracy rates well above the national average include California, 25%; Illinois, 22%; Nevada, 25%; and Ohio, 27%. States closer to or below the national average include Arizona, 21%; Florida, 19%; New York, 18%; and Texas, 20%.

The Study was conducted by IDC, the information technology industry’s leading global market research and forecasting firm.

Software piracy in the eight states studied cost software vendors an estimated $4.2 billion, which is higher than the national figure for all other countries in the world except China.

Lost revenues to software distributors and service providers were an additional $11.4 billion, for a total tech industry loss of more than $15 billion.

Software piracy also has ripple effects in local communities. The lost revenues to the wider group of software distributors and service providers ($11.4 billion) would have been enough to hire 54,000 high tech industry workers, while the lost state and local tax revenues ($1.7 billion) would have been enough to build 100 middle schools or 10,800 affordable housing units, or hire nearly 25,000 experienced police officers.

“The United States may have the lowest PC software piracy rate in the world, but still, one out of every five pieces of software put into service is unlicensed,” BSA Vice President of Anti-Piracy and General Counsel Neil MacBride said.

“Not only is this a problem for the software industry, but piracy also creates major legal and security risks for the companies involved,” he added.

“The most tragic aspect is that the lost revenues to tech companies and local governments could be supporting thousands of good jobs and much-needed social services in our communities,” MacBride continued.

The BSA-IDC State 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. IDC used proprietary statistics for software and hardware shipments and enlisted IDC analysts in more than sixty countries to confirm software piracy trends.