2024-12-07 17:02:08
BSA: Software piracy’s ‘tragic’ impact on US society market data

| Channel Register

The Business Software Alliance claimed yesterday that software piracy in the US is costing the industry $11.4bn and local government $1.7bn in lost taxes.

The software multinational lobbying group reckoned that although four out of five pieces of software is legally bought in the US the remaining counterfeit material results in a “tragic” loss of revenues for companies and public services.

It claimed those losses translated into enough cash for local government to pay for 100 middle schools or 10,800 affordable housing units. Alternatively, said the BSA, 25,000 police officers could be hired and dispatched onto the mean streets of New York, Florida, California and Nevada, presumably to flush out pesky software pirates anywhere they might reside.

The BSA-sponsored IDC study, available here (pdf), pinpointed eight US states in the report. It found significant variations from the national piracy figure of 20 per cent.

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