Use of unlicensed software sees small decrease in Brazil

Some 47 percent of software users in Brazil run unlicensed copies, according to a recent study carried out by BSA Software Alliance.

This represents a decline of only three percentage points in relation to last year, which the BSA attributes to the growth in adoption of cloud-based tools among both among consumers and organizations.

The small reduction in use of unlicensed applications is also attributed to awareness campaigns around the risks of using pirated software led by the BSA itself in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Software Companies (ABES).

"Albeit small, the [piracy] decline is positive for Brazil. We always had the smallest piracy rate in Latin America, but there is still a lot to be done," says BSA country manager for Brazil, Antonio Eduardo Mendes da Silva.

Back in the 1980s, unauthorized copies accounted for about 90 percent of the Brazilian software market, according to numbers by ABES.

The market of licensed software generates approximately $2.9bn in Brazil per year, but without piracy it would generate twice as much, according to a separate BSA study.

According to the Seizing Opportunity Through License Compliance study by the BSA, 39 percent of software installed on computers around the world in 2015 is not properly licensed, down from the 43 percent registered in the last study carried out by the trade group in 2013.

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