The rising use of cloud computing will help curtail unlicensed software use, a piracy watchdog said.
Japan remains one of the countries with the lowest rate of unlicensed software use, at 19 percent last year, the Business Software Alliance, an industry lobby group, said Tuesday.
"It seems clear that the growth of cloud services will lower unlicensed software use by giving vendors greater control of the distribution of software and continual views of usage, and by lowering the upfront costs for customers and providing continual services and enhancements," the alliance said in a report.
Aside from cloud computing, a slowdown in sales of personal computers and the rapid growth of smartphones are also positive factors in combating software piracy, it said in its BSA Global Software Survey.
"In a sense, it makes the software prices more affordable," said Roland Chan, a senior director at BSA. "So as cloud computing, as the use of tablets and smartphones as computing devices takes over more from PCs, we expect that the unlicensing rate will decline."