Yesterday U.S. movie, software, video game and music companies urged the Bush administration to crack down on foreign piracy of their products. According to the companies foreign pircay cost the U.S. economy an estimated $20-$22 billion in 2002:
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) urged the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick to maintain $75 million in trade retaliation on Ukraine for piracy and add nine countries to the United States' "priority watch list." Those countries were the Bahamas, Bolivia, Kuwait, Lithuania, Pakistan, Poland, South Africa, South Korea and Thailand. |
The group also urged continued close monitoring of China, where it estimated U.S. companies are losing nearly $1.85 billion annually because of illegal copying of movies, records and music, business and entertainment software and books.
The industry study estimated piracy losses in 56 countries they surveyed in depth at $9.2 billion in 2002. Losses in the rest of the world were pegged at about $11-$13 billion, not including piracy done over the Internet.
More interesting numbers on world piracy can be found here.
Source: Reuters
