Internet piracy down as government toughens regulations

BEIJING, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- Internet piracy has been a chronic problem hindering the development of China's dynamic digital industry, but it is finally subsiding as a result of tightened government control and heightened copyright awareness in the business circle.

The Chinese government has long been promoting the use of authorized software, a move that has greatly helped improve the Internet piracy situation, said Han Jun, deputy director of the Technology Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

The pre-installed rate of authorized operating systems in factory-produced computers in China reached 98.08 percent in 2010, and the rate for some companies like Lenovo and Acer had hit 100 percent, according to Han.

Huang Yaohui, Adobe's general manager of the Greater China Region, said that the usage rate of authorized Adobe software in China has continuously increased thanks to the government's copyright protection efforts.

Statistics from the China-based Internet Laboratory show that an average machine's quantity of installed pirated software dropped about 10 percent from 0.78 set in 2009 to 0.7 set in 2010. The overall installation rate of pirated software dropped from 14 percent in 2009 to 12 percent in 2010.

Yu Tao, a manager with the Chinese online services company Sohu.com Inc., said a turning point in China's online video industry came in 2008 when Internet companies began to step up copyright purchasing.

The online copyright for a TV series was sold for 2,000-3,000 yuan (314-471 U.S. dollars) per episode several years ago, but the price has surged to 1.5-1.7 million yuan today, Yu said.