China Claims Copyright Piracy Problem “Distorted”
Please note that we are not authorised to provide any investment advice. The content on this page is for information purposes only.
China has hit back at critics and Western media outlets that exaggerate and “distort” the reality of copyright piracy in the Mainland.
Speaking at the sidelines of the Communist Party Congress, Tian Lipu, the top official at the State Intellectual Property Office, slammed what he said was a deliberate distortion of the piracy issue by Western media caused by the country’s poor global image.
China has hit back at critics and Western media outlets that exaggerate and “distort” the reality of copyright piracy in the Mainland.
Speaking at the sidelines of the Communist Party Congress, Tian Lipu, the top official at the State Intellectual Property Office, slammed what he said was a deliberate distortion of the piracy issue by Western media caused by the country’s poor global image.
Without denying the existence of copyright piracy, Tian said the real issue is that the government’s efforts at combating piracy were being ignored, Reuters reported.
“To be honest, there is a market for pirated goods. But to a large extent, China’s intellectual property rights protection image has been distorted by Western media. As soon as people hear of China, they associate it with piracy and counterfeiting,” he said.
According to Reuters, Tian also challenged an earlier report by the US-based Business Software Alliance which showed that some 80 percent of computer software used in China is pirated.
Citing the improving piracy situation, he added:
[quote] China is the world’s largest payer for patent rights, for trademark rights, for royalties, and one of the largest for buying real software. We pay the most. People rarely talk about this, but it really is a fact. Our government offices, our banks, our insurance companies, our firms … the software is all real. [/quote]
In July, Xinhua reported that China has spent more than 1 billion yuan ($160.5 million) buying licensed software for national and provincial government bodies as part of a national campaign to eliminate software piracy.
According to Xinhua, the money was spent on 158,823 operating software licenses, 506,693 copies of office software, as well as anti-virus and other “special-purpose software”.
Tian said that if companies like Apple were so worried by piracy they would never choose China for their production bases.
“Of the goods made for Apple, most are made in China. Once Apple’s brand is added to it and it is exported to the United States its value doubles,” he said.
He pointed out:
[quote] This could only happen because China’s intellectual property rights environment sets foreign investors at ease allowing them to come to China to manufacture. [/quote]
Reuters also said the International Intellectual Property Alliance estimated US companies lost more than $15 billion in 2009 due to copyright theft, of which $14 billion was due to software piracy. China contributed an estimated $3.5 billion of those losses.
Related Story: Is It Worth Keeping The Pirates At Bay?
Related Infographic: A World without Wikipedia #SOPA
