Central and Eastern Europe World Leader in Software Piracy

Although down two percent from 2010, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is still the world region with the highest average software piracy rate of 62 percent, according to the latest Business Software Alliance (BSA) global software piracy report for 2011.

In the CEE region, Georgia still has the highest software piracy rate of 91 percent, a two percent decrease compared to 2010. Moldova (90%) and Armenia (88%) take the second and the third place, followed by Azerbaijan (87%), Belarus (87%), Ukraine (84%) and Montenegro (79%).

Next on the list are Kazakhstan (76%), Albania (75%) and Serbia (72%), followed by Macedonia (66%), Bosnia (66%), Bulgaria (64%), Russia (63%) and Romania (63%). After them, there are Latvia (54%), Lithuania (54%), Croatia (53%), Poland (53%) and Estonia (48%). Slovenia (46%), Slovakia (40%), Hungary (41%) and the Czech Republic (35%) are at the bottom of the list with the lowest piracy rates in the CEE region.

If we take Croatia as an example of country from the CEE region, among the 24 countries in the region, Croatia has the sixth lowest piracy rate. However, among the members of the European Union, where the average rate is 33 percent, Croatia has the eighth highest rate of software piracy.

The global software piracy rate is 42 percent, unchanged from 2010. However, software theft for personal computers reached a record commercial market value, increasing from USD 58.8 billion (EUR 46.7 billion) in 2010 to USD 63.4 billion (EUR 50.4 billion) in 2011. This increase has been propelled by the rapid increase in the PC use in emerging economies where piracy rates are significantly higher than in the developed markets — an average of 68 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

This year’s study on global piracy also includes the results of research on the attitudes and habits of those who use unlicensed software. According to the results, 31 percent of respondents said they use pirated software often or occasionally, 26 percent said they rarely use pirated software and only 38 percent said they never use illegal software. The study also revealed that the infringers are mostly male, aged 35-44 (27%).

Author: Dalibor Radovic, Jelena Jankovic

For more information, please contact croatia@petosevic.com.

Source: Business Software Alliance (BSA)