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China Promotes Authentic Software, Cracks Down on Pirate Discs

Posted on: Tuesday, 28 March 2006, 06:00 CST

Excerpt from report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency)

Beijing, 27 March: Chinese customs have cracked a growing number of counterfeiting cases, an increase of 30 per cent annually since China's entry into the WTO in 2001, officials said here Monday [27 March]. [passage omitted on previously reported information]

The Chinese government has also taken measures to guarantee the use of authentic software in government departments.

"By the end of 2005, government departments have all used authorized softwares," said Yan Xiaohong, deputy-commissioner of the China National Copyright Administration.

In China, software mainly falls into three categories: system software, enterprise software and software for personal computers (PC). "The first two specially designed for large organizations or enterprises are called uncommon software and almost have no possibility of piracy," Yan said.

The pirated software do[es] exist but mainly in the software for personal computers, which is called common software," Yan said.

"Some foreigner organizations said over 90 per cent software used in China are pirated, but from the above analysis we can see this is not true in reality since the common software only accounts for one- third of China's software industry," Yan said.

"To curb the use of pirated common software, we have urged the computer producers to load authorized software before they are sold on the Chinese market," Yan said.

Yan also revealed the Lenovo, one of the largest PC producer[s] of China, who acquired IBM's PC business last year, has begun load the authentic software on the PC[s] before sell[ing] them on the Chinese market.

China, the largest manufacturer of PCs in the world now, produces 80m PCs annually, with 18-plus million sold on Chinese market and the rest sold overseas.

In addition to the fight against software piracy, China has also strengthened crack down on illegal disc production line.

"Since 1996, 223 underground production lines have been seized," he said.

"The informant is rewarded with 150,000 yuan to 300,000 yuan as long as one illegal production line is seized by the Chinese government," Yan said.

"Most of the pirated discs are produced by illegal producers," he said.

Recently, 48 authorized producers in 18 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have been investigated the authorities.

"Those involved in piracy were punished," he said, noting "six permits of these producers were revoked and eight producers were asked to stop business temporarily."

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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