While international software piracy has increased during the past two years, SA is beating the global trend, with levels of illegal software distribution decreasing for the fifth consecutive year and dropping from 45% to 38% last year.
This was revealed in the seventh annual survey on software piracy conducted by the International Planning and Research Corporation (IPR) on behalf of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the international watchdog group.
In the annual study, the alliance reports that nearly $11 billion in global sales were lost to software piracy in 2001, and points to lax laws and the growing availability of bootlegged software on the Internet as the main factors contributing to the increase in software piracy.
However, the survey shows the rate of piracy in SA dropping steadily from 64% recorded in 1994, to 38% recorded last year, equating to revenue losses of around $40 595. This makes SA the leader in combating piracy in Africa, as Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe feature on the BSA`s Top 25 list, showing piracy rates of 77%, 71% and 69% respectively.
But Mark Reynolds, chairman of the BSA in SA, remains cautious about the results of the IPR-conducted survey.
He explains that the study is based on figures gathered from hardware distributors, reflecting the amount of new PCs sold in the country, with estimates then made as to how many software packages would ship legally with those PCs.
These figures, he says, show that 62% of new PCs contain legal software packages, while software shipping on 38% of new PCs is not accounted for.
"While these figures are encouraging and do reflect a downward trend in piracy in SA, the survey does not take into account the software installed illegally on older PCs," he says.
Reynolds points out that the survey also does not include operating system software, such as Microsoft Windows.
He believes that as much as 50% of all software used by small and medium businesses is pirated, while up to 95% of software piracy occurs as a result of large corporations exceeding the limitations of their software volume licences.
However, he notes that the King II report`s corporate governance recommendations have led to many enterprises implementing tighter software licensing controls.
Although the Middle East and Africa region experienced a piracy rate decrease from 55% in 2000, to 52% in 2001, piracy in Western Europe increased by 3%, resulting in revenue losses of $2.7 billion for BSA members. The largest increases in Europe were seen in France and Germany where piracy rates increased from 40% to 46%, and from 28% to 34% respectively.
In SA, BSA members include Microsoft, Adobe, Symantec, Network Associates, Softline and Corel.
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