£1.49bn: The price of pirate desktop software in the UK

Software companies lost £1.49bn to piracy in the UK last year - and that's before the impact of the economic downturn.

More than a quarter of the desktop software installed in the UK last year - 27 per cent - was pirated according to the sixth annual global IDC software piracy study, sponsored by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represents the interests of software makers including Apple, IBM and Microsoft.

BSA UK committee member, Julie Strawson, said that most of this unlicensed software was business-orientated and called for executives to stamp out the widespread belief this was acceptable practice.

"I contact customers on licensing and go away with the message 'Why should we bother, there is nothing out there stopping us doing this, unless you sue me and take me to court'. That is what we are up against," she said.

"What is missing at board level is a feeling that software should be managed as rigorously as human resources or any other part of the business."

The BSA said it has stepped up efforts to fight unlicensed software, with the value of legal settlements achieved by the BSA on the behalf of its members in 2009 up 25 times on the same period last year.

Globally the rate of piracy also increased from 38 to 41 per cent, with losses at $53bn, largely because of the fast-growing software markets in countries with high rates of piracy such as China and Brazil.

In Egypt authorities have taken drastic measures to stamp out piracy, legalising all pirated software held by universities and government departments in exchange for a payout and an assurance that licences will be purchased in future.

The UK is relatively low down the international piracy rankings, with the 13th lowest piracy rate in the world.

The US has both the lowest amount of piracy, 20 per cent of all software installed last year, and the highest rates of losses, $9bn, because of the large size of the software market in the US.

Marcel Warmerdam, of the IDC, said piracy rate in the UK had hovered around 27 per cent for years, adding that, so far, the global downturn has had little impact - but he expects it to drive up piracy this year.