Losses from piracy up 9% despite drive
By Dennis D. Estopace
Reporter

DESPITE the government’s initiatives in raiding end-users and distributors of counterfeit software and public education efforts, the country’s software piracy remained high and losses to the industry increased.
       The Business Software Alliance, a group of wealthy multinational software firms, bared in a study recently released that software piracy in the country remained at 71 percent last year from the same figure in 2004.
       However, losses to the industry went up by 9 percent, from US$69 million in 2004 to US$76 million (P3.9 billion) last year.
       “With no change in the piracy rate since 2004, software piracy remains a serious concern for the Philippines,” BSA Philippines Committee chair Hwee-Chong Ng was quoted in a statement as saying.
       Hwee-Chong added that these figures reflect more corporate end-users are buying and/or using illegal software for business. This, despite what Jeffrey Hardee, BSA Asia-Pacific vice president, told reporters via teleconference from Hong Kong—that he is encouraged by government initatives in enforcement and education.
       “Both are important if we are to address this problem,” Hardee said, noting that Philippine anti-piracy teams conducted a total of 29 raids as of this year against 15 end-users of illegal software and 14 channels for these products.
       Hwee-Chong maintained, however, that the country’s piracy rate remains “a potential roadblock to success for the local IT industry to fully prosper,” adding that, “a lot needs to be done.”
       The report comes at a time when shipment of personal computers with loaded software posted an increase last year.
       Reading BSA data, Hardee said that total PC software installed on computers have hit US$94 billion in 2005 worldwide. However, only US$60 billion worth of PC software was paid for and the rest snapped up by the pirated market.
       The Philippines is the eighth country in the Asia-Pacific region that posted the highest piracy rate.
       Vietnam, while posting a 2-percent decline according to BSA computations, remained at the top after BSA gave it a 90-percent rate from 92 percent in 2004 and 2003. India, the seventh country with the highest piracy rate, was just a percent above the Philippines last year at 72 percent from 74 percent in 2004.
       Overall, Asia posted a 54-percent piracy rate, up 1 percent from 2004 and 2003 rates of constant 53 percent. Across Asia, losses to the industry were summed up by BSA to have hit US$8.05 billion from the US$7.897 billion in losses cited by BSA in 2004.
       Worldwide, BSA said personal computer (PC) software piracy rate stayed the same at 35 percent, while losses increased by over $1.6 billion.
       The growth in losses was simply a function of general market growth—the software market grew 7 percent, losses from piracy grew only 5 percent. While PC unit shipments grew by 16 percent last year, PC software licenses kept pace.