China Cracks Down on Digital Piracy
In signing a new agreement this week with several trade associations, China appears to be getting serious about cracking down on digital piracy.
Several industry groups, including the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), have pushed for a copyright-protection agreement from China for several years now, but finally came to terms on at least one issue this week with China’s National Copyright Administration.
The industry groups are now expected to provide Chinese officials with information about legal and authorized products distributed by their members in that country. By tracking legal products, the thinking goes, Chinese officials will be better suited to distinguish between legal and pirated copies.
Rampant Piracy
The agreement marks a leap forward for U.S. movie studios and software developers, as both have seen profits swallowed up in China over the past decade by prolific piracy, both on and offline. The BSA estimates that total losses to pirated software in China in 2005 amounted to $3.9 billion, and that 86 percent of all software used in China that year was pirated.
Those numbers are even higher for the movie industry, where the MPA estimates that the piracy rate for its members’ products has shot up to 93 percent.
BSA members include technology companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Dell. The MPA consists of Hollywood’s biggest film studios, including Paramount Pictures and MGM.
While the BSA and MPA have enormous clout throughout most of the world, that hasn’t always been the case in China, where copyright laws are often blatantly ignored.
Gaining Legal Footing
The piracy problem in China has been linked to the lack of access U.S. firms have to China’s vast market of potential consumers. The MPA has argued that lack of access to China’s markets has created huge demand that is filled by pirated wares.
As China and…
