Robert J. Scott, a lawyer at Scott & Scott in Dallas, contends like many others that the alliance’s figure is too high and that the group draws imprecise conclusions about the purchases that people would have made if they weren’t pirating software.

“I don’t put much stock in those reports,” says Mr. Scott, who advises businesses being audited by the alliance and other software companies.

The alliance defends its numbers, and Mr. Finn at Microsoft says the group’s figures are accurate. He plays down the central accusation that Microsoft would face less of a piracy threat if it just lowered prices. “We have seen no connection between piracy rates and price,” he says, citing the company’s own pricing experiments. “I think it’s a canard.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft-sponsored raids and customer audits sometimes have a public relations fallout.

Two years ago in India, Microsoft hired Anup Kumar, a 10-year veteran of the Central Bureau of Investigation, in part to teach the company how to push software piracy cases through the local bureaucracy. When raids followed, many local software sellers chided the government in the local press, saying it bowed to Microsoft’s will.

And, last month, Microsoft altered its policies in Russia after a spate of incidents in which local security services seized computers of advocacy groups and opposition newspapers, using the pursuit of stolen software as justification. Microsoft said it would provide a blanket software license for advocacy groups and media outlets, and offer legal aid to such groups caught up in software inquiries.

The protection of intellectual property has become a high-stakes political game where countries that do Microsoft’s bidding expect some kind of return on their effort, according to Joseph Menn, author of “Fatal System Error: The Hunt for the New Crime Lords Who Are Bringing Down the Internet.”

“It’s part of the geopolitical process,” he said, “and Microsoft has a level of clout that a lot of other folks don’t in Washington and in other countries.”