Piracy hurts Asian recovery

Piracy hurts Asian recovery

KUALA LUMPUR (AP): Combating software and music piracy is crucial to recovering economies in Asia, technology experts and officials at a regional meeting said Wednesday.

From government offices and hospitals to large private companies, pirated software is ubiquitous in Asia. A 1998 study by a global audit company found that 84 percent of the software used and sold in Southeast Asia was illegal.

Officials from 13 Asia-Pacific countries at a Software Policy Summit in Kuala Lumpur focused two days of talks on "the debilitating effects of piracy," which has caused governments to lose millions of dollars in potential taxes and cost the economies thousands of jobs, a joint statement said.

"Reducing piracy is one of the fastest things Asia can do to foster full recovery from the economic downturn," Robert Holleyman, president of U.S.-based Business Software Alliance, told a news conference at the end of the meeting.