Turkey 4th country in the world most-affected by pirated software, Microsoft says

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

Pirated software cost Turkey $2.5 billion last year, Microsoft Turkey’s Intellectual Properties Rights (IPR) Director Ozan Öncel said. AA photo

The usage of pirated software cost Turkey $2.5 billion last year as it became the fourth country in the world most-affected by pirated software, Microsoft Turkey’s Intellectual Properties Rights (IPR) Director Ozan Öncel said yesterday. 

While pirated software created a worldwide loss of $10 billion, it cost $2.5 billion in Turkey, the fourth-highest figure in the world after Pakistan, Qatar and Palestine, according to a Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR), Öncel said. He also noted that the rate of pirated software usage was 62 percent in Turkey last year.

“The users prefer pirated software because they generally find the original ones expensive,” Öncel added, stressing that the damage made by pirated software costs more than the original item due to security concerns. One in every three people risks exposing their computer to Malware (Malicious Software) that captures users’ data and damages devices, he said, noting that consumers and medium-sized enterprises are anticipated to spend $22 billion and 1.5 billion hours to handle the damages caused by Malware, according to a study by the International Data Corporation (IDC). Öncel said the report revealed that 50 percent of pirated software was accessed via the internet, 25 percent by sellers and the rest in other categories. 

“Actually, the law on Intellectual Properties Rights gives prison sentences between 1 and 5 years in the case of pirated software,” Öncel said.