Software piracy in Moldova: better, but very bad anyway

Piracy of software on personal computers (PC) in the Republic of Moldova fell by 2 percentage points from 2006 to 2007, amid a global trend in which piracy rates dropped in most countries. “However, although having left the second place in the top of the countries with the highest piracy rate in the world, Moldova is on the fourth place after Armenia, Bangladesh and Azerbaijan,” Oleg Efrim, the representative of the Business Software Alliance in Moldova, told a news conference on Wednesday, May 14. The expert estimates the losses caused to this industry by the software piracy droped with $13 million in Moldova in 2007, to 43 million, Info-Prim Neo reports. These are among the findings of the fifth annual global PC software piracy study released today by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), an international association representing the global software industry. “This report shows that have more work to do in the Republic of Moldova in the battle against software piracy. Among the causes of such a high rate we mention the lack of the respect for the intellectual property, the people's low incomes and the drawbacks in applying the law in this area,” Oleg Efrim has said. During the previous 2 years software piracy rate in the Republic of Moldova has decreased from 96% up to 92%. BSA Moldova announces that, together with its partners – the intellectual property protecting agency AGEPI and the Ministry of Domestic Affairs – they have fought the software piracy through awareness-raising campaigns.