Factors influencing software piracy in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Computers and Software have been swift to gain popularity ever since their advent in Sri Lanka. Though we are behind our immediate neighbour India, Information Technology (IT) as an industry has also seen a dramatic boom in the Island. Yet, along with the excitement of a techno savvy society in the making, the menace of software piracy too has seen a silent, yet rapid growth. The situation has grown to an alarming level of 90% piracy rate, thus placing Sri Lanka among the top 5 countries in the world with the highest piracy rate and also within the top two in the Asian region. A low piracy rate is of much importance when it comes to maintaining healthy foreign trade relationships and attracting foreign software vendors and also for the growth of the local software industry catering to the local market. Research of this nature is of much significance as attempts made to combat piracy in the absence of proper analysis would be futile, as even at present the laws enacted have proved to have made little impact considering the high rate of piracy. This research attempted to fill a void created by the absence of research in the software piracy area in the Island, by giving an insight to the factors contributing to software piracy in Sri Lanka with significant research focus on individual software piracy. As such several, contributory factors were identified through previous research and a pilot study done locally which' were verified through a full scaled survey and subsequent analysis done using regression analysis to identify significant relationships between the factor and individual software piracy. This research identified "affordability of original proprietary software", ."availability of original proprietary software", "social acceptance of software piracy", "perception of the piracy issue" and "awareness level of the individual" as the most influential factors contributing towards individual software piracy. Among the key recommendations made through this research the need to implement measures to increase awareness and change the public perception on software piracy and importance of copyright protection of software. Additional measures to popularize Open Source Software (FOSS) were also among the suggestions.