Curbing tech piracy can stimulate Asian economies – report

Asian economies led by China can reap a financial windfall and create hundreds of thousands of jobs in a few years by cracking down on software piracy, an industry study showed yesterday.

The Business Software Alliance and research group IDC said nearly 60 per cent of the software programmes installed on personal computers in 2009 across the world’s largest region were unlicensed.

Reducing software piracy to about 50 per cent in four years would produce almost $41 billion in economic activity, create 350,000 new jobs and generate nearly nine billion dollars in taxes, according to the joint study.

Achieving the same reduction in two years would boost the economic benefits for the region by another 33 per cent, a press statement said. Worldwide, a cut in piracy rates from the current 42 per cent to 32 per cent over four years would add $142 billion to the global economy, 500,000 new jobs and 32 billion dollars in tax revenues, the study said.

Roland Chan, BSA’s senior regional director for marketing, said the Asia-Pacific region will capture “more than three fifths” of the new jobs forecast to be generated globally because of the size of the market.

“Reducing software piracy is an opportunity to inject much-needed stimulus into Asia Pacific economies,” he said.

“This study clearly shows that aggressively fighting software piracy today means greater economic benefits tomorrow - for the region’s economy, not just the software industry.”

An earlier BSA-IDC report said 900 million software programmes were installed on personal computers in the Asia-Pacific region in 2009.