The Business Software Association (BSA) released a new study claiming that eight states in the United States are responsible for 52 percent of total piracy losses in the country.

From the press release by the BSA:

The national average for software piracy in 2007 was 20%, meaning that one in five pieces of PC software in use in the United States was unlicensed. States with piracy rates well above the national average include California, 25%; Illinois, 22%; Nevada, 25%; and Ohio, 27%. States closer to or below the national average include Arizona, 21%; Florida, 19%; New York, 18%; and Texas, 20%. The study was conducted by IDC, the information technology industry’s leading global market research and forecasting firm.

Software piracy in the eight states studied cost software vendors an estimated $4.2 billion, which is higher than the national figure for all other countries in the world except China.  Lost revenues to software distributors and service providers were an additional $11.4 billion, for a total tech industry loss of more than $15 billion.