Ireland's software piracy rate has not improved in the past two years despite falling across the rest of Europe.
The software piracy rate in Ireland remains static at 42 per cent, according to the Business Software Alliance's (BSA) eighth annual survey, an independent study released worldwide today.
Mr Julian McMenamin, chairman of BSA Ireland, said Ireland's piracy rate can be attributed to the proliferation of Internet piracy (as it provides an alternative distribution channel for pirated software) and a certain amount of apathy.
He described the piracy rate of 42 per cent as "appalling".
As a comparison to the rest of Europe, Ireland shares the same piracy rate as Portugal. Britain has a piracy rate of only 26 per cent, while Denmark enjoys the lowest piracy rate in Europe at 24 per cent.
According to a recent study on the economic impact of software piracy Ireland's economy would increase by €570 million, including 2,400 new high-wage jobs and €236 million in tax revenues by 2006, if software piracy was reduced by 10 percentage points in the next four years.
The global software piracy rate declined to 39 per cent in 2002 from an all-time high of 49 per cent in 1994 when the study began. In Western Europe it has declined 17 points from 52 per cent to 35 per cent.