The Business Software Alliance, an anti-piracy consortium made up of many of the software industry’s biggest players, has released its Sixth Annual Global Software Piracy Study. Conducted by research firm IDC, the study claims that antipiracy efforts in the United States have more-or-less stalled out, and that approximately one fifth of all software in use in the U.S. is pirated. At 20 percent, the United States has the lowest software piracy rate in the world, but the size of the U.S. software market also means the software industry is losing more money to piracy in the U.S. than anywhere else, with losses estimated at some $9.1 billion in 2008. Worldwide, the study estimates piracy accounted for more than $50 billion in lost revenue in 2008…and that’s leaving out the effects of exchange rates.
