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Cutting PC software piracy creates jobs: IDC
By siliconindia
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Friday, 25 January 2008, 02:01 IST
Hong Kong: A study by IDC shows that cutting down the rate of PC software piracy would create thousands of jobs globally and boost economic growth and tax revenues. A crack down on piracy activities would have a good effect in Asia where piracy rates are high. Of the 600,000 new jobs that IDC contends would be created globally, 435,000 would be in Asia.
If each country were to cut PC software piracy rates by 10 percent over the next four years, it would generate 600,000 new jobs and a revenue of $141 billion. Moreover, it will boost global tax revenues by $24 billion, said an IDC study conducted in 42 countries.
According to the U.S. based IT market research firm, reducing piracy in Asia by 10 percent points in four years would generate an economic growth of more than $40 billion and a tax revenue growth of more than $5 billion in the region.
A 10 point reduction in piracy could make China's IT workforce the largest in the world, surpassing the U.S., and make Russia a bigger IT market than India.
In the U.S., piracy reduction would create 32,000 new jobs and add $41 billion to the world's biggest economy, where spending on IT goods and services totaled $458 billion in 2007, or 3.4 percent of gross domestic product, according to IDC.
China and Vietnam have software piracy rates of 82 percent and 88 percent respectively - which means eight out of every 10 software packages in use are illegal - compared with 21 percent in the U.S. and 34 percent in Western Europe.