China claims piracy at new low The rate of software piracy in China dropped to just 38 per cent in 2011, according to new government-backed figures that are markedly different to those from the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which recently branded the country the world's worst offender. State-run newspaper China Daily proudly reported the figures, which …
have you been to china? -- I don't just want to explain and give analysis. I want to give everything the same knee-jerk reaction the Chinese have to paying for software: nothing. it's like you expect tap water to be free in a restaurant, they believe-- wait, wait, wait, it's NOT "believe", it's like apple just falls from trees, babies just know to look for a nipple for food, software of any kind to the chinese is either free or might-as-well-be-non-existent.
I was in NanNing, GuangXi Province, China over the weekend and was, as usual, shopping in the electronics marts downtown (4-million population).
Copy CD/DVD were openly on sale; from all parts of the spectrum, movies and software. Some good looking Apple knock-offs, too, at a fraction of list prices.
I window shop Friday nights, place my orders on Saturday and all the stuff is ready to go first thing Sunday. (Deep stocks of copy software is stored way off site) No fuss, no muss. 555 timers were 2.7 cents each, genuine PIC and Altmel microcontrollers available at low prices, too, for a dollar or two.
As for BSA, they never visit some of the countries whose names they blacken. Laos and Cambodia have few computers and most of the copy ware is removed from VietNam government computers as they switched to Linux!
What! The copyright mafiaa wouldn't overestimate copyright infringement would they???? They don’t exaggerate claims do they???????
The same way the Recording Industry Ass of Amerika and 13 record companies are suing Limewire, a company that has not existed for 2 years, for 72 TRILLION [1] dollars for sharing 11,000 pieces of music, or if you prefer, about 20% more than the estimated 60 Trillion dollars net worth of the planet , or about 6 ½ billion per song.
I’ve told them a gazillion times, don’t exaggerate!
[1] Short scale trillion = 1 x 10^12
There is absolutely nothing in it for the government. Nada, zilch.
But when there is something in it for them, users beware! I live in China and remember Rising anti-vir being unloaded unto the masses (same as 360 anti-vir). It was specifically programmed to let certain viruses through, namely the ones that let users run Windows and Office applications illegally. When users installed Norton (or other American/European anti-vir software), it would literally break Windows. There are now so many viruses working on pc's undetected I never know which one I end up with when I stick my usb drive in a computer...
I am damn sure the Chinese government let those viruses through to protect its own interests.
Well the BSA are required to *look* accurate. They have their methodolgy independently reviewed for example. So like them or not, they're under certain constraints to produce plausible figures. The Chinese government can basically write whatever number they want to on their bottom, bend over and tell you to look at it.
I could easily believe the Chinese Goverment is secretly pro-piracy where it suits them; the possibility that free software means chinese businesses have lower costs, higher income, pay more tax, and that's not ignoring the probability that free software means greater opportunity for learning and skills development using software, which leads to an increase in Chinese interests (turning a billion people into useful pawns).
As for common people... considering so many things are Made In China yet Sold by The West at inflated prices, it's really not a stretch that they might see it as helping themselves to their share of the goods.
There is a perspective that the development world uses IP and copyright to keep the developing world down.
Want a nuclear power station? Better pay the French.
Want GM Soya? Better pay the Americans.
Want software? You will be paying the Americans again.
Can't afford to pay because your yearly average wage is 2k, and the software is costing a quater as much as the employee? Well, I guess you can't have computers, can't have the productivity multiplication that modern industrial control, comunications, and logistics brings.
But you can have all these things. You just need to not enforce copyright. You can even use your state agencies to steal western industrial secrets. Some fools will hand you blueprints and code as part of a government procurement contract. Especially if they need thier nuclear power station saftey checked by your agency. The new, native chinese nuclear reactor design looks a lot like the French reactor they bought a few years ago.
You could suggest a lot of Chinese growth is simply 100 years of technological development in fast forward, without having to invest money to develop or purchase the tech. But to the Chinese worker, earning several times what his father made, or the Chinese politician, worrying about how to stay in power, needing to deliver growth at all costs... why does that matter?
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