You can't keep a "good" illegal action down, especially in the 21st century so the BSA and IDC we're simply left to find out that PC software piracy has led to losses of almost $48 billion last year alone. As explained by BSA, although the piracy rate in 67 countries out of the 108 included in its fifth annual study, went down, the growth in high-piracy countries has resulted in a 3% increase of the overall rate, which topped 38% last year.

The countries with the highest piracy rate in 2007 have been Armenia, with 93%, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan and Moldova with 92%, Zimbabwe (91%) and Sri Lanka (90%). Out of these six countries, three of them, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka have kept their piracy rate constant since 2006 while the other three have seen their rates go down.

As for the list of countries with the lowest piracy rates, it includes the United States (20%), Luxembourg (21%), New Zealand (22%), Japan (23%) plus Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland, all with a 25% piracy rate.