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May 30, 2006, 01:19 PM ET
China Faces Its Piracy Problem
Opponents of the entertainment industry’s antipiracy practices have often attacked music and movie studios with a rhetorical question: Instead of suing college students, why don’t you do more to prevent piracy in nations like China, where bootlegging is rampant?
That line of argument may pack even more punch now that software companies have made headway in their own battle against Chinese piracy. In response to years of lobbying, China’s government has agreed to start trying to curtail the use of unlicensed software within its borders.
The Business Software Alliance, an American trade group, has argued that more than 90 percent of the software used in China is pirated. Chinese officials dispute that figure, but they have recently started requiring local computer makers to ship machines with licensed operating systems already installed. And the officials have begun an effort to make sure that government-owned computers are free of bootlegged programs. The steps are a clear sign, analysts say, that the software industry’s attempts to cozy up to China are paying dividends. (International Herald Tribune)
Categories: Company-Watch, Campus-Piracy
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