Seriousness of the percentage also depends on whether anyone is trying to sell something to those people at all, and whether they can reasonably afford it.

If someone is pirating Office in Azerbaijan, but MS doesn't offer the programs themselves, or via a distributor, then MS isn't losing anything because it would have never made anything. 100% of that irrelevant population are less of a concern to the company than the 20% it may have in the US. If they offer it but it costs $200 while a reasonable monthly income is $400, it's also a lost cause for personal use.

^ Truth

And at least you get access to all the fancy stuff iTunes etc and don't have to wait months for delayed releases of soft.

This is also big part of why people pirate.

I'd counter that with "the reason America gets stuff first is that Americans have the money to pay for it." 

Really, if Americans were poor as hell not only would they pirate without regret but they would have to do so long after some other country has had the product "legitimately."  Not that anyone would know or care what that meant if they livedin a poorer country.

It's partly the money, for very poor countries it's obviously almost entirely the money (and for regular home PC usage also the lack of knowledge and habit that pretty much everything has a cheap or free alternative).

For some countries though, e.g. Eastern Europe, there is a money problem but for a good chunk of the population stuff is affordable. Not things like some Adobe Suite for dicking around at home, but pc games, ps2 games, cheaper software, it's not terribly expensive. There is however a lack of offering those things, both advertising and actually selling them. Game selection for example is poor and has been a lot worse, to the point you either have to pirate something, or get it off ebay. And some years ago even in Western Europe it wasn't always easy finding someone to ship internationally.

It's getting better but PSN is a perfect illustration of how little companies care (of course this doesn't relate to piracy, at least currently, but serves as an example). A whole bunch of European countries don't have PSN stores, credit card billing address has to match so they can't register an account and use it in another country's store, and there are no vouchers.
If there was a way to pirate those titles, why wouldn't those people do it?

I agree with Twesterm completely. 20%, though comparatively low when compared to other countries, is still a high number from the perspective of a software company. If you were running a retail store and 20% of the goods you had on your shelves were stolen instead of purchased, you'd either go out of business or have to jack up the prices of your goods. This is the case with software. Just because a number is lowER when compared with other numbers does not mean that it's low.

NOTE: Lower and low are two very different things!

Only???

20%'s alot IMO...

spending money (that you have, not credit) doesnt cause recessions. Not spending money causes recessions, as the economy doesn't expand, it contracts.

There's a big difference though: if your physical products are stolen you are losing them for good, thus losing their retail value.

But if a software product is pirated, it does not automatically mean that the user of the pirated software would have bought it from you. I own a pirated copy of AutoCAD because I like messing around with all kinds of software, but I would never buy an original one.

Thus, not each pirated copy used in the world amounts to a lost profit for the author or publisher. That's a big difference.

That was almost a haiku