BSA study: Software piracy rates down in U.S

August 7, 2003

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has
announced that the piracy rate in the United States has dropped with 2 percent
from 25% in 2001 to 23% in 2002. The organistation also said it had
collected 3.1 million dollars in settlements from 37 companies. The piracy drop
is encouraging for the BSA, and they will not stop their efforts to educate
companies about software licensing.

The
states that saw the largest reduction in piracy from 2001 to 2002 were
Louisiana, Maine, Oregon, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, Alaska, South
Carolina, Washington and Oklahoma. And the nine states with the lowest
piracy rates in 2002 were Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, New York,
Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington and Virginia, as well as the District
of Columbia.

The BSA said that while the rate of software
piracy was down in 2002, it still cost the U.S. economy $1.9 billion, up
from $1.8 billion in 2001, and led to the loss of more than 105,000
jobs. "It is encouraging news that the U.S. piracy rate has dropped
two points from 2001, but there is no acceptable level of piracy," Robert
Holleyman, president and CEO of the BSA, said in a statement. "Our hope is
that BSA's educational programs, public policy initiatives and resources
and tools for businesses will result in a continuing decline in software
piracy rates."

The BSA has no real success method, but is currently main
educating bussinesses about software licenses and is now also educating
childeren so they will know that proper software licenses should be used in the
companies they work for.

Source: ComputerWorld.com