Software Piracy is so rampant in asia, it will be a surprise if any software maker claims profits from asia. The number of parameters which contribute to this problem is too many to actually find any meaningful solution to this issue. Though Corruption stands out as the root cause for this as well as many other social problems in asia, there are many other problems which contributes to Piracy.

Ignorant Participants - Home Users

This group of people are blissfully anaware of the concept of copyright/royalty. To them copyright/royalty doesn't make any sense and they dont understand. To them, Concept is simple. Buy from Whoever sells...no questions on the lineage. These people mostly approach their local service man for their requirement and get the things done.

Willing Participants - Home Users

This set of people are actually know a bit about what they are doing..but still they dont consider buying pirated goods as crime...given the various other social ills prevalent in asia, piracy is hardly a crime in peoples mind. Mostly students, hardly could afford the originals...ends up with piracy without much guilt.

Criminal Offenders - Business Users

These are the worst group of people who commits this crime with full knowledge of what they are mostly. They are mostly the affluent business users who can afford to buy the original goods but still choose the piracy goods to reap the benefits...mostly these are the same group of people who would in turn create and DEFEND their "intellectual property", business trademarks/brands...

First...I live in a major METRO,

A month back, I needed to buy a backup software for my office work. I tried to buy it from the IT shops in the nearby Malls....was not available....after many a surprised stares for trying to buy original and advises from the pros about the 100 % "Originality" of their duplicates, i decided to go to the supposed IT specific MALL. Apart from the namesake display of the few OS/word processing softwares, no vendor really seems to stock any licensed softwares. If I insist, they offered to order and get it in a couple of weeks time....I couldn't buy it...

The problem is not that the software I needed is in anyway a rare requirement. I faced the same issues when i needed an development environment software earlier...I could get the same softwares in pirated form for less than 2 US Dollars without much effort.

there is a long way to go...may be centuries...may be not possible...before asia catches up with the west.