Raubkopien weit verbreitet: Jede dritte Software kopiert

Deutlich unterhalb von Deutschland liegen die USA (22 %), Neuseeland (23 %), Dänemark (26 %), Österreich (27 %) und Schweden (27 %). Neben diesen relativen Zahlen sind auch die hochgerechneten Verluste immens - vorausgesetzt jeder Raubkopierer hätte die Software auch gekauft. Weltweit summiere sich der Verlust auf 29 Milliarden US-Dollar. Den größten Schaden erlitten die Software-Entwickler in den USA (6,4 Mrd. USD) und China (3,8 Mrd. USD), Deutschland liegt auf Platz 4 mit 1,9 Mrd. US-Dollar.

Pressemitteilung Major Study Finds 36 Percent of Software In Use Worldwide Is Pirated - USD 29 Billion in Losses Last Year WASHINGTON, D.C., July 7, 2004 –Thirty-six percent of the software installed on computers worldwide was pirated in 2003, representing a loss of nearly USD 29 billion. These are the key findings of a global software piracy study released today by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the international association of the world’s leading software manufacturers. Conducted for the first time by global technology research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), this year’s BSA global piracy study incorporated major software market segments including operating systems, consumer software and local market software. In previous years, the study was limited to business software applications. The inclusion of these new categories paints a broader, more accurate picture of the global software piracy problem based on IDC's extensive industry and market knowledge. The study found that while USD 80 billion in software was installed on computers worldwide last year, only USD 51 billion was legally purchased.

“Software piracy continues to be a major challenge for economies worldwide,” said Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of BSA. “From Algeria to New Zealand, Canada to China, piracy deprives local governments of tax revenue, costs jobs throughout the technology supply chain and cripples the local, in-country software industry.” Holleyman said the IDC study reflects a logical evolution in BSA’s decade-long effort to measure piracy in the global economy. Its scope was expanded to account more accurately for trends such as the growth of local software markets worldwide and the acceleration of Internet piracy. For its analysis, IDC drew upon its worldwide data for software and hardware shipments, conducted more than 5,600 interviews in 15 countries, and used its in-country analysts around the globe to evaluate local market conditions. IDC identified the piracy rate and dollar losses by utilizing proprietary IDC models for PC, software and license shipments by all industry vendors in 86 countries. Among the report's key findings were the following:

• The piracy rate in the Asia/Pacific region was 53 percent, with dollar losses totaling more than USD 7.5 billion.
• In Eastern Europe, the piracy rate was 71 percent, with dollar losses at more than USD 2.1 billion.
• In Western Europe, the rate was 36 percent, and dollar losses totaled USD 9.6 billion.
• The average rate across Latin American countries was 63 percent, with losses totaling nearly USD 1.3 billion.
• In the Middle Eastern and African countries, the rate was 56 percent on average, with losses totaling more than USD 1 billion.
• In North America, the piracy rate was 23 percent. The losses totaled more than USD 7.2 billion.

The study found that the size of a regional software market is the critical link between piracy rates and actual dollars lost. For instance, 91 percent of software installed in the Ukraine in 2003 was pirated, as compared to 30 percent in the U.K. But dollar losses in the U.K. (USD 1.6 billion) were about 17 times higher than those in the Ukraine (USD 92.1 million). This difference is attributed to a much larger total PC software market in the U.K. than in the Ukraine.