Taiwan’s software piracy ratio decreased to 43% last year, only higher than Japan in Asia
E030604Y3 Jul. 2003（E46）
Business Software Alliance, or BSA, released a survey on the worldwide software piracy ratios on June 3. Taiwan’s software piracy ratio has decreased from 53% in the year before last to 43% last year, which shows that the sweeping implementation of IPR laws last year has been effective.
Last year was claimed to be “Intellectual Property Protection Action Year” in Taiwan. Anti-counterfeiting authorities had seen a dramatic increase in complaints encouraged by the large monetary reward provided by BSA. Many companies had been brought to justice because the evidence of crime against them is clear. Many companies worrying about being reported and damaged reputation had allocated budget for purchasing software. As a result, the respective software makers had seen a noticeable rise in sales in the Q2 last year.
According to BSA, Taiwan’s piracy ratio last year is 43%, 10 percentage lower than 2001. The margin of decrease is the world’s No. 1. Compared with neighboring countries in Asia, the Taiwan’s piracy ratio is the second lowest in Asia (excluding New Zealand and Australia), only next to Japan’s 35%, but is still higher than the world’s average piracy ratio of 39%. However, Mainland China’s piracy ratio is as high as 92%, while India, the country renowned for software OEM, has a piracy ratio of 70%.
In BSA’s survey, the piracy ratio in Asia-Pacific Area last year averaged at 55%, one percentage lower than 2001, and the total economic loss rose to 5.48 billion US dollars from the original 4.72 billion US dollars. Nevertheless, most of the business software makers had gained profit from the decrease of piracy ratio.
