An annual survey carried out by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) showed the region accounted for 43 percent of world losses from software piracy in 2002 or an all time high of 5.5 billion dollars.

Annoucing the findings of the survey, BSA vice president and regional director Jeffrey Hardee told a media conference that the Asia Pacific stood to lose heavily in economic terms if the problem was not brought under control.

If illegal use of software dropped by 10 percent, more than 1.1 million jobs would be created in the region with direct economic benefits of 170 billion dollars, Hardee said.

Additionally, the regional information technology (IT) sector, now worth 175 billion dollars, could potentially increase to 330 billion dollars and government coffers would swell by more than 15 billion dollars, he said.

Hardee described this is as the "opportunity cost" to Asia if piracy levels did not improve.

"There's a ripple effect on the economy. So the way forward is Asia will benefit if it invests in intellectual property protection," he said.

The eighth BSA survey on illegal use of software showed North America ranked best with a piracy level of 24 percent, followed by Western Europe with 35 percent, and Asia Pacific and Latin America each at 55 percent.

In dollar terms, the Asia Pacific far outweighed any region with China singled out as the main culprit, the survey showed.

China's software piracy level in 2002 was 92 percent, the second highest in the world behind neigbouring Vietnam, on 95 percent.

"For the first time, China is the country with the largest dollar losses," the BSA said.

"China's high piracy rate, combined with the strength of its growing economy, created losses of 2.4 billion (dollars) in 2002.

"This represents 44 percent of the total dollar losses in the Asia Pacific region and 18 percent of the total world dollar losses."

On the bright side however, the Chinese government is making efforts to improve the situation now that it is part of the World Trade Organisation where intellectual property rights have to be protected, Hardee said.

"The law itself has improved," Hardee said, referring to steps taken by Beijing to improve intellectual property rights.

Still, more needs to be done.

"The government is updating its legislation but we need to have a massive education program."

Of the 15 regional economies surveyed by BSA, six experienced growing rates of illegal use of software from 2001 -- Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam.

The remaining nine -- China, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand -- saw either an improvement or no change in their rates.

China's rate stayed the same but, with the economy growing, the value of piracy there sky-rocketed.

Globally, software piracy resulted in losses of 13.08 billion dollars in 2002 to the industry, the study showed.

The BSA is a non-profit organisation whose members include some of the biggest names in the industry such as Microsoft, Symantec and Adobe.

SPACE.WIRE