Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Software Piracy in China Has Dropped To 86 Percent

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) said China dropped four points between 2004 and 2005 from 90 to 86 percent.

This year marks the second year in a row where there has been a decrease in the PC software piracy rate in China. This is particularly significant, considering the vast PC growth taking place in the Chinese IT market,” said (BSA president and CEO) Holleyman." Read more here.

Eric Pfanner of the IHT nuanced the disadvantages of software piracy in Step in the 'right direction' on piracy because of the network advantages. Bill Gates said in 1998:

"As long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours," he said of Chinese users, according to Fortune magazine. "They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

In the mean time that decade is almost over. However, Gates is beginning to find innovative ways to collect revenues. See here.

Read Pfanner's IHT article here.

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