Drop in software piracy in Sri Lanka highest in Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific’s biggest drop in software piracy has been reported in Sri Lanka last year, according to an industry watchdog, which warned that elsewhere and overall in the region it had hit a record.

“From 2009 to 2010, installations of unlicensed software on PCs in Sri Lanka fell by three percentage points, the highest drop recorded in Asia and the Pacific, bringing the rate down to 86% in 2010,” the Business for Software Alliance Senior Director – Marketing, Asia-Pacific Roland Chan said yesterday.

However, the commercial value of pirated software rose to US$ 83 million from US$ 77 million against a backdrop of increased PC shipments for the year.

“In Sri Lanka, the consistent efforts of the National Intellectual Property Office and the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) and their respective anti-piracy drive including policy initiatives, awareness, education and infrastructure have contributed towards lowering the piracy rate.



The establishment of the Anti-Piracy and Counterfeit Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Sri Lanka Police has also played a pivotal role in curbing infringement of intellectual property rights. The improvements seen are a credit to the vision of President, Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Government of Sri Lanka,” Chan added.

BSA said the commercial value of unlicensed software installed on personal computers in the Asia Pacific region reached a record US$ 18.7 billion in 2010 as 60% of software deployed on personal computers (PCs) during the year was pirated, more than double the losses of US$ 7.5 billion in 2003.

In comparison, in 2009, 59 per cent of the software installed on PCs in Asia Pacific was obtained illegally, while the value of pirated software amounted to over US$ 16.5 billion. These are among the findings of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) 2010 Global Software Piracy Study, which evaluates the state of software piracy around the world.