EU business software piracy rife, says report

37% of business programmes used in the EU are pirated according to research by market analysts IDC. The study, involving 5,600 interviews, identified that Greece has the worst problem, with 63% of business software pirated, followed by Poland and Lithuania (58%), Latvia (57%) and Estonia 54%. Richer EU countries France, Spain and Italy also had high piracy rates of 44, 45 and 49%. Britain was comparatively clean at 29%. All this pales into comparison with the developing world however: ICM estimates that 92% of business software in China is pirated.