LONDON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) -- The global trade in pirated software, from versions of Microsoft Windows XP to Adobe Acrobat, hit nearly $29 billion in 2003, an industry trade body said in its annual survey on Wednesday.
That value amounted to about 60 percent of all legal global desktop software sales of $51 billion, said the Business Software Alliance (BSA).
Since the Internet boom, software firms and media conglomerates have seen a rapid increase in piracy as online file-sharing networks and "warez" trading sites make it easier to exchange all manner of copyrighted material.
"Peer-to-peer file-sharing services are becoming a huge problem for us," said Jeffrey Hardee, BSA's Asia-Pacific director.
The BSA has spent large sums to prevent users of business and consumer software from installing unlicensed software duplicates from operating systems to design programs. It has also worked with police to crack down on groups that traffic in pirated software.
In April, law enforcers in Britain, Germany and the United States dismantled a series of pirated software distributors and seized $50 million in illegal software.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/biztech/07 ... index.html