Software piracy cost global businesses $47.8 billion in lost revenue last year, up 20 percent from 2006, according to a new study by an industry trade group. But the rate of unauthorized copying actually declined in more than half the countries measured, including some previous pirate havens like Russia, as the authorities took steps to crack down.

The report, prepared for the Business Software Alliance, a group based in Washington whose members include most of the world’s large software makers, said the biggest country for software piracy in dollar terms remained the United States, where software valued at $8 billion was pirated last year, up from $7.3 billion in 2006.

Robert Holleyman, the alliance’s president and chief executive, attributed the mounting global losses to faster economic growth in developing markets, thus bringing more personal computers and unlicensed software onto the market.

“The majority of illegal copying is being done by businesses, usually small and

midsize businesses,” Holleyman said in an interview in advance of the report’s release Wednesday. “Although we have seen a decline in the piracy rate in most countries we studied, in those few, very large markets, there is still very fast economic growth, particularly among small businesses.”

While the volume of losses from software piracy was highest in the United States, the rate of software piracy, estimated to be 20 percent, was the lowest of countries measured in the study. China remained the world’s second-biggest location for illegal copying, with an estimated $6.7 billion in pirated software in 2007, up from $5.4 billion a year earlier. According to the report, China’s piracy rate was 82 percent, unchanged from a year earlier.

Russia was third in the study, with piracy losses estimated at $4.1 billion, up from $2.2 billion a year earlier. Despite the rise, Russia’s piracy rate declined to…

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