The number of Indians using pirated software fell by just one percentage point in 2011 as compared to 2010, a study has found.

According to the 2011 Global Software Piracy Study - done by independent firm Business Software Alliance (BSA), about 63 per cent of Indians used pirated software, as compared to 64 per cent last year.

Though the rate of pirated software use was down slightly, the commercial value of such piracy increased during the last one year, because of rise in sales of personal computers. India sold around 11 million PCs in 2011.

“The commercial value of software piracy was $2.7 billion in 2010 that increased to $2.9 billion in 2011 as prices of such software also increased during the year,” Ms Lizum Mishra, Director, BSA India, told reporters.

More pirated software

The study revealed that India sells more of pirated software than legal software. Legal software sales amounted to $ 1.72 billion in 2011. Indians also were among the lowest spenders on legal software for every new PC bought.

“Globally, one spent $71 for software on a $100 PC, while an Indian spent only $17 on $100 PC,” Mr Roland Chan, Senior Director, BSA, said.

The study was conducted in 38 countries, including the US, China, the UK, Russia, Brazil, France, Japan, Italy, Mexico and Germany among 14,702 users.

Most vulnerable country

The most vulnerable country was the US, which bought $9.8 billion worth of pirated software against sales of $42 billion legal software. China followed by spending $8.9 billion on pirated software and $12.6 billion on legal software, BSA said in its report.

The report said 20 per cent of respondents in India admitted to acquiring software illegally “all of the time,” “most of the time” or “occasionally,” while 23 per cent said they do it “rarely.”

The study also found that software pirates in India are predominantly male, aged between 25 and 34 years.

BSA, in order to curb such software piracy, has been working with the Government and also launched a roadmap report in November 2011 on developing legal and secure software ecosystem.

> ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in