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A free ride
May 14th 2008
>From The Economist print edition
The $48 billion annual cost of software piracy
MANY PC users have saved a bit of cash by running a pirated version of a
must-have software program at some point. Such piracy cost technology firms
$48 billion last year, up by $8 billion from 2006, according to an annual
study published on Wednesday May 14th by the Business Software Alliance, a
trade body. Users in rich countries have become a bit more honest (or more
scared) in recent years, with rates falling slightly. But this is offset by
a big rise in a few poor countries with weaker regulations. In Armenia, the
worst offender of the 108 countries surveyed, 93% of software is reckoned to
be illegal. America has the lowest piracy rate, at 20%.