Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Thursday, Jun 27, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Jun 27, 2002 |
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Info-Tech
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Piracy $245 m lost in 2001 from software piracy: IDC report Our Bureau
CHENNAI, June 26 THE IDC estimates that revenue of about $245 million was lost in 2001 from pirated software in India, which was almost half of the legal packaged software market. This revenue loss was mainly due to piracy by copying and selling and unauthorised bundling with hardware. The Indian track record was relatively better as compared to other countries in the Asia Pacific region like China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Pakistan, the IDC feels. In India, the major driving forces for the use of pirated software are the lack of legal framework, ``Taken-for-Granted'' approach, huge availability of pirated software, high software pricing, high usage of assembled PC and enormous financial benefits. On the other hand there are factors such as increased activities from the vendors, industry associations and government, and growing users' awareness that are inhibiting piracy in India though it is still at a high level, the agency feels. Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) such as Microsoft, Oracle and Adobe are fighting individually, as well as through industry alliances such as Nasscom, to combat piracy. Some of these vendors have a major market share but are still finding it difficult to make people pay for them. This situation is very predominant in the areas of system level software, authoring applications, accounting and HR applications, office applications, anti-virus tools and utilities, the IDC report says. According to IDC, In India, the major problem is that a large portion of the PC users are not aware of intellectual property (IPR) laws and think it is legal to copy software. In India, IPR of computer software is covered under the provisions of Indian Copyright Act 1957. This Law was amended in 1995 to make it stronger than earlier. Despite having a strict legislation in place piracy has continued unabated. In India the laws against anti-piracy are well written but they need to be consistent, effective and properly implemented at all levels from both private and government agencies. These findings are a part of a recently concluded study by IDC on the status of software piracy in India by meeting the key software vendors, various governmental and non-governmental associations, channel partners and PC assemblers.
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