Jane Wakefield BBC News Online technology staff

Tech industry leaders gathered in Brussels have reiterated the growing threat of piracy to the software industry in Europe.

The warning was issued at a conference, organised by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which attracted delegates from firms such as Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Symantec.

The meeting was told that in 2000 the software industry in Europe lost $3bn to pirates.

This figure is thought to be only a tiny fraction of the amount of piracy that is going on every day on the internet.

"We can't estimate how much piracy is on the net but in one day we found a million sites under a search for one of the codenames for pirated software," said a BSA spokesperson.

Unacceptable

For an industry that commits millions of pounds to research and development, and that contributes six times as much to Europe's GDP as the consumer goods industry, the levels are unacceptable, the BSA says.

"It is a risk most other businesses don't have to deal with - having 34% of your product stolen," BSA's president Robert Holleyman told the conference.

Holleyman: Unacceptable levels of piracy

According to Microsoft lawyer Brad Smith, piracy has transformed the nature of the software industry in Europe.

"If there wasn't piracy there would be more software companies in Russia and Eastern Europe," he said.

Instead Russia has become an enclave for pirated software and Microsoft has recently declared a five-month amnesty for Russian and Ukrainian internet cafes to switch to legally licensed software.

Software pirates range from professional businessmen to teenagers selling illegal programmes from their bedrooms to organised criminals.

Organised crime is giving the BSA the biggest headache.

"Criminal organisations can sell software direct, as well as through retail channels," said Symantec lawyer Art Courville. "So, it is harder to monitor."

Tightening legislation

Europe has a greater rate of piracy than the US - around 34% compared with 25% in the US. Software leaders put this down in part to differing rules in Europe.

"Some countries in Europe had copyright laws dating back to the 1940s," pointed out Apple lawyer Peter Davies.

The last thing that you want is to create havens where the legislation is weaker

BSA spokesperson

That is about to change as the European Commission puts into force a directive intended to harmonise civil laws governing how courts deal with cases involving intellectual property.

All BSA members are hopeful that this will act as a deterrent.

"The last thing that you want is to create havens where the legislation is weaker," said a BSA spokesperson.

Change of attitude

There is also work to be done on educating the public about the importance of intellectual property, especially as a web counter-culture advocating free software, such as music downloads, continues to grow.

Open source software such as Linux is not seen as a threat to the work the BSA is doing, however.

"Linux is a way of developing software whereas piracy is copying," said Microsoft's Brad Smith.

He does believe that stopping the pirates could have a dramatic effect on the current pricing of software, however.

"As the legal market grows, there is more investment in new products and enhanced competition. A healthy market leads to more attractive prices for consumers," he said.

Despite the efforts of the pirates, the software industry in Europe is looking pretty healthy.

It is forecast to grow from �35bn in 2000 to �67bn by 2005.