Overall software piracy in the Middle East rose to $2.45 billion, up 24 percent year on year.
In a similar announcement, the Ministry of Interior noted that arrests for software piracy had risen 107 percent year over year and that number seemed to be still growing.
"Software piracy is the easiest type of piracy because software is not tangible," said Ahmad Al Jasim, regional manager of Autodesk Middle East. According to Al-Jasim, Autodesk sees a 55 percent piracy rate in the region.
"Software is usually on a CD and because a company's knowledge is on this small storage device people can actually easily pirate it. The fakes come in mass volume, primarily from East Asia."
He concluded that piracy is very hard to stop, despite active anti-piracy media from the state and the software companies.
"Even if you catch some there's still more new pirates coming in every year...Then you try to catch them - it's a continuous cycle."