The piracy rate has gone down by 10% in the Urals-based computer stores, even though the Urals used to be some of Russia’s top piracy areas, with the rate of up to 25% as recently as two years ago. Almost no pirated software is offered for sale. The thing is, we keep on instructing people and giving seminars for the retail outlets. Besides, we can see that the customers are no longer asking for pirated software as well,’ Microsoft Business Development Director in Ural Federal District Andrei Kinash announced at a press meeting in Yekaterinburg.

‘At the same time, we hardly pay attention to online piracy. This is a very costly and time-consuming process, and we feel there should be a legislative initiative about this. Up to 80% of our products get sold through retail chains. We’ve got agreements with the Internet providers about distribution protection for our software within their networks. What is more, we have the same verbal arrangements with the file-sharing system owners,’ he added.

‘That said, we did carry out an insider research and found out that piracy is not related to product prices. This is more of the mentality thing: why pay even a little if you can download the product for free?’ Kinash explained.