The rare bit of good news comes at a tough time for software and media conglomerates. They are battling to stem the black market trade of cut-rate or free software, music and movie copies available online and on the street.

Industry lobby group Business Software Alliance (BSA) said the worldwide software piracy rate fell last year to 39 percent from 40 percent.

"We're pleased with the results, but we're still facing a piracy situation where nearly four in 10 pieces of business software is used without authorization," said Beth Scott, BSA vice president of Europe, Middle East and Africa.

The BSA has spent huge sums to try to reduce the installing of unlicensed software duplicates in areas such as word processing and spreadsheet programs to avoid paying the license fees.

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