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BSA targets Indonesian pirates

Thar be treasure...

In a sign of Indonesia’s increasing importance as a market for Western technology vendors, anti-piracy body the Business Software Alliance has teamed up with local police to bust numerous firms found to be running illegal copies of well-known software.

The raid on 20 businesses back in March yielded pirated software from Symantec, Microsoft, Adobe and Autodesk worth around $177,000 (£115,000), according to local news site Detik (via TechInAsia).

To aid its ongoing efforts to slash piracy rates, the BSA has also apparently doubled its reward money for whistle-blowers from $5,000 to $10,000 until mid-June – which could lead to more tip-offs in Indonesia.

According to some estimates, the country is home to 120 million people who live on less than $2 a day – the World Bank’s definition of poverty.

Indonesia, with the world’s fourth largest population and a fast-growing economy, is becoming an increasingly attractive target market for Western technology vendors.

It remains one of the few BlackBerry strongholds globally, for example, with the Canadian firm hanging on to around a third of the mobile market there.

However, like China, piracy is endemic.

The BSA’s last annual report on this put the software piracy rate in Indonesia at 86 per cent back in 2011, that’s way above the global average of 42 per cent, the APAC figure of 60 per cent, and amounts to an estimated value of $1.5bn (£980m).

The BSA couldn't immediately be reached for comment on the reports. ®

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