New Study: Decrease Piracy, Increase Economic Growth

The Business Software Alliance’s new impact study on software piracy was released this week and we’re happy to see that it supports what we’ve been saying all along: protecting IP means creating jobs.

The report, done in conjunction with IT marketing and research firm IDC, draws the connection between reducing software piracy worldwide and increasing economic growth.

The major point they make—and this is the one we hope that most people take away—is that piracy does not affect only the developer of the software in question. Rather, it has a “ripple effect” throughout the economy as IT sales, service vendors, add-on developers, distributors and other dependent industries feel the pain.

The BSA/IDC study states that software has an “outsized impact” on the IT economy, where for every dollar spent on software, there’s another $3-4 spent on distribution and services.  They estimate that “Reducing the PC software piracy rate by 10 percentage points over four years would spur $142 billion in new economic activity in the 42 countries studied while adding nearly 500,000 new jobs and generating $32 billion in new tax revenues.”

We like.

They admit that such a reduction is a tough, but not impossible task, and the report also contains suggestions for how it can be achieved, like additional education and awareness, strong enforcement mechanisms, and governments leading by example.

You can view the whole thing here.