Piracy in China

The American Heritage Dictionary defines piracy as "the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted or patented material." It is a problem that affects companies all over the world. Piracy of software, movies, and music is commonplace in China. China has the second worst piracy rate in the world; about 92 percent of the software in China is pirated (Williams 2004). Various companies and governments have attempted to combat piracy, but they had not seen much success until recent years. Combating piracy is a difficult task, especially in a country that has a history of not enforcing intellectual property laws.

Piracy costs companies and artists money. Companies spend millions of dollars on research and development to make software. Artists spend countless hours to film a movie or record an album. Record labels and movie production companies spend millions of dollars producing and marketing entertainment media. The companies' and artists' investments are supposed to be returned in the form of profits from the media that the companies and artists sell to the public. However, if "pirates" are selling illegal copies of the media, the companies do not make any money. For example, Feng Xiaogang, a Chinese director, said in an article on CNN.com, "We estimate that one pirated DVD is watched by five people and there are roughly one million pirated copies of our film. One million copies times five people times $2.10 per tickets -- that's more than twelve million Yuan in box office loss" (FlorCruz 2002).

Piracy costs people their jobs. Companies, such as Microsoft, cannot afford to pay thousands of employees if the companies do not make money from their products. Companies have been reluctant to outsource software development to China, which hurts Chinese software developers, because the companies fear that the software will be leaked to the public. The music industry suffered a "14 percent drop in album sales from 1999 - 2002 largely because of pirated music" (Ryan 2003). Record labels no longer make as much profit from CDs, which has forced them to lay off employees.

Piracy causes people to lose the motivation to create. Companies, filmmakers, and musicians are all interested in producing and selling their products. However, many companies and people lose motivation to create products if they cannot make a profit from their products. For example, if everyone was stealing or purchasing unauthorized copies of Microsoft Windows, what motivation would Microsoft have to improve the software? Why would it produce the software in the first place?

The evolution of technology has made it even easier to pirate media. Anyone with a personal computer can easily duplicate CDs and DVDs at home. People commonly pirate DVDs, video and audio cassettes, and video and audio CDs. The price of the hardware, software, and blank media that is used to pirate is constantly dropping and is readily available to consumers.

Cultural practices in general in China support piracy. China has a reputation for having a tolerance for some of the highest piracy rates in the world. "Despite laws and international agreements protecting intellectual property rights, an overwhelming lack of political rules within China allows piracy to rapidly expand" (Rohde 2004). However, it's not just the government that is causing the problem. People seem to believe that piracy is a way of life in China. For instance, an American expatriate that's living in China was quoted in City Weekend Magazine as saying, "I buy rip-off t-shirts, I didn't register with the police to live in my building, and I try to avoid paying tax - but I don't think any of it constitutes fraud. It's just part of life here" (Lusby 2004).

People with certain religious beliefs are affected by piracy. For example, one of the Ten Commandments is, "Thou shalt not steal." Most people, however, do not associate piracy with stealing. People believe that buying a pirated DVD or downloading music from the Internet is different from walking into a store and stealing a DVD or CD. The main difference between piracy and stealing from a store is that piracy is less risky. For example, people can purchase pirated media on the street in China and they will not be arrested for it. They can download music from their home computers and they will probably not be punished for it.

Piracy is socially acceptable to many people all over the world. Many people do not understand or simply ignore the fact that purchasing or downloading pirated media is illegal. Some people attempt to justify piracy by saying that companies charge too much for their products, but in reality, they are simply trying to justify stealing. Peer-to-peer computer networks, such as Kazaa, have created an international network of people pirating media. Two Americans, Arandolf Hobson Guthrie and Cody Abram Thrush, sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of pirated media from China on eBay. Were the purchasers upset that they were getting pirated media at a discounted price?

Piracy, especially of movies, has an impact on all segments of the population. "DVD peddlers can be found everywhere, lugging