While Indonesia continues to top the list among the 5 countries HWM is in, software piracy in South-east Asia has generally gone down or remained the same.

Want to know which top 10 countries have the highest software piracy rates in the world? Click on the image.

T&A: The Business Software Alliance (BSA) held a press conference yesterday and unveiled its Sixth Annual BSA-IDC Global Software Piracy Study to the media. According to the study, PC software piracy rate in 2008 dropped in slightly more than half (57 countries) among the 110 countries studied worldwide, but remained the same in nearly one third (36) and rose in just 16.

This also means that worldwide piracy rate went up from 38% in 2007 to 41% in 2008. BSA attributed this rise to fast-growing PC shipments in high-piracy rate countries.

For the Asia Pacific alone, the average PC software piracy rate increased from 2007’s 59% to 2008’s 61%. According to Jeffrey Hardee, BSA’s VP and Regional Director, APAC, losses from this reached over US$15 billion. Hardee explained that this increase is the result of the mathematical outcome of more rapid growth of PC markets in APAC economies with higher piracy rates. (more…)

Monsters vs. Aliens is DreamWorks' foray into full-on stereo-3-D-only animation production. Time will tell if 3-D films can curtail the worsening piracy problem in the industry.

T&A: Time.com published an article where it interviewed some of the leading directors and producers of Hollywood today, including Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and Jeffrey Katzenberg, on the future of films and film-making with advances in stereoscopic 3-D technology today.

While the article explored the various flights, flops and follies of older stereoscopic 3-D incarnations over the years (the current one is the 8th), it also talked about recent moves to convert older blockbusters like Titanic, Toy Story and Star Wars into 3-D, and the intense hype built around upcoming 3-D films like James Cameron’s Avatar, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Monsters vs. Aliens (which opens this month) and Steven Spielberg/Peter Jackson’s Tintin.

Unlike previous incarnations of stereoscopic 3-D, the current tech now enables viewers to don polarized 3-D glasses instead of the dorky colored ones, while film-makers have now perfected the camera systems to film it.

To many, this may seem like the next big paradigm shift after sound and color invaded cinema screens. Studios are hopeful that this would also curtail piracy, as it is harder for digital camera-toting moviegoers to film and distribute it widely to pirate-users at home, who may need the right 3-D glasses and proper hardware just to experience stereoscopic 3-D. (Editor opinions: 1) (more…)