A report released Tuesday claims that 20 percent of PC software within the United States is pirated – and that that rate is still the lowest in the world. The sixth revision of a joint study between the Business Software Alliance and IDC found that that Armenia, Bangladesh, Georgia, and Zimbabwe are the countries with the highest amounts of piracy, topping 90 percent. 
Worldwide, the rate of software piracy rose from 38 percent to 41 percent, because of the increase of Internet users in high-piracy locations such as China and India, the report found. Software piracy within the U.S., meanwhile, has remained flat. Setting the effects of exchange rates aside, the report found that the estimated losses from software piracy grew by 5 percent to $50.2 billion. In 2005, however, The Economist published a critique of the BSA/IDC methodology, concluding that the study’s results were exaggerated. BSA and IDC representatives were not immediately available for comment.
