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Information about Software Piracy Protection & Security Software is highly valuable, it must be protected from unauthorized use in order to ensure new and existing revenue streams. software piracy continues to increase globally. The effects of this increase are devastating: not only does software piracy reduce revenues, it also results in less R&D, and in less investment in marketing and channel development. The only way to stop software piracy before it happens is to implement a strong software DRM solution to protect your software from unauthorized use. Piracy rating %age given below* India Piracy Rate: 71% Losses:** ($M) $1275 Select from list Albania Algeria Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Belgium Bolivia Bosnia-Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Cameroon Canada Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Guatemala Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Israel Italy Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Korea, Republic of Kuwait Latvia Lebanon Lithuania Malaysia Malta Mauritius Mexico Moldova, Republic of Morocco Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Nigeria Norway Oman Pakistan Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico (US) Qatar Republic of Macedonia Romania Russian Federation Saudi Arabia Senegal Singapore Slovakia Slovenia South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand Tunisia Turkey Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Venezuela Viet Nam Zambia Zimbabwe **IDC used the following basic research architecture to measure piracy rates: Determined how much packaged software was put into use in 2007. Determined how much packaged software was paid for/legally acquired in 2007. Subtracted one from the other to get the amount of pirated software. More about piracy The BSA and IDC Global Software Piracy Study covers piracy of all packaged software that runs on personalcomputers (PC), including desktops, laptops, and ultra-portables. This includes operating systems, systemssoftware such as databases and security packages, business applications, and consumer applications such asgames, personal finance, and reference software. The study does not include other types of software such as thatwhich runs on servers or mainframes or software sold as a service.China’s piracy rate stayed at 82% for a secondconsecutive year after dropping by ten points over theprevious three years. Despite appearances, this doesnot signify that the declining trend has halted. In late2007, IDC found that PCs sold by local assemblers(also known as "white box" vendors) were higher thanpreviously counted, which raised the overall estimateof the PC market by more than 25% and, hence, the2007 piracy rate. Without this new information, IDCbelieves the 2007 rate would have been closer to80%. Thus, China is demonstrating progress infighting PC software piracy. Indeed, PC software piracyin the government and large enterprises in China isdecreasing and piracy in the consumer and smallbusinessmarkets, which accounted for two-thirds ofthe country’s PC market last year, is also beginning todrop. The results have been aided by a legalrequirement for PC manufacturers to ship legaloperating systems with new PCs. Nonetheless, it isimportant to keep in mind that there is still much morework to do in addressing the use of pirated andunlicensed PC software applications by state-ownedand other enterprises in China. It is also important forthe government to ensure that it remains incompliance going forward with its own legalizationand legally licensed operating system pre-installdirectives.India’s piracy rate dropped two percentage points to69% as a result of government and industry educationand enforcement efforts, software vendor activationcontrols, and an increase in PC market share bymultinational vendors.Dealing with software piracy in emerging markets isstill a challenge. Rapid growth in first-time users fromthe high piracy consumer and small-business sectorsaffects country averages even when piracy drops inother areas. The increase in Internet access, especiallybroadband access, increases the supply of piratedsoftware. Sprawling geographies and weakinstitutional infrastructure make education andenforcement all the more difficult. In some cases, evenculture is involved, where societies see intellectualcreation as a common good and not the propertyof its creator.T here was notable progress in the battle against PCsoftware piracy in 2007. Of the 108 individualcountries studied in this report, the piracy rate droppedin sixty-seven countries from 2006 to 2007 andincreased in only eight countries.However, the weighted impact of high market growthin emerging markets was again felt worldwide.Because the worldwide PC market grew much faster inhigher-piracy countries and regions, the worldwide PCsoftware piracy rate increased three percentage pointsto 38% from 2006 to 2007. PC shipments in Brazil,Russia, India, and China–commonly referred to asthe BRIC countries–grew 26% last year, compared to13% in North America, Western Europe, and Japan.The combined BRIC countries are now as large a PCmarket as the United States.At the same time, because the size of the market grewsignificantly in 2007 and the value of the US dollardropped nearly 7% against other currencies, lossesfrom piracy rose by $8 billion to nearly $48 billionworldwide. In fact, real losses did not grow as fast asthe overall PC software market, which grew faster than15% last year.While the worldwide weighted average piracy rate is38%, the median piracy rate in 2007 is 61%, downone percentage point from last year despite theaddition of six new countries to this report. This meansthat half of the countries studied have a piracy rate of61% or higher. In more than one-quarter of thecountries studied, the piracy rate is 80% or higher.Among the larger emerging economies, Russia’s piracyrate dropped a remarkable seven percentage points to73% from 2006 to 2007. The reduction in the piracyrate is the result of legalization programs by vendors,enforcement and education by the government andanti-piracy groups, agreements between vendors andlocal distributors to bundle legal software withhardware, and, of course, an oil economy that helpeddrive a 22% increase in personal disposable income in2007 and lower consumers' propensity to use well discussed rest of later.