International Law

China Copyright Infringement Survey

By Stan

Nearly 71.3 percent of Chinese were aware of copyright, according to a new survey released on Wednesday. The figure was 10.7 percent higher than two years ago.

In the fifth national reading survey conducted by the Chinese Institute of Publishing Science (CIPS) last August, the findings also revealed the purchase rate of pirate publications was declining, down 3.6 percent from 45.5 percent in 2005.

An affiliate of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), CIPS conducts the reading survey every two years to grasp reading trends and the status quo of cultural consumption among Chinese.

Pirate publications, pirate audio and visual products ranked first in terms of purchase rate, with pirate books second. The purchase rate of pirated games software and fake computer software was only 6 percent.

The survey showed more males than females, and more youth than the elderly, were buyers of pirated goods. People with higher educational backgrounds bought more pirated publications than those with less education.

In addition, urban residents were more likely to buy pirated items than rural ones.

The low price as well as convenience in shopping were the major incentive that spurred people to purchase pirated publications, according to the survey.

About 14.6 percent of buyers said they didn’t know they were buying fake goods.

I don’t think the demographic breakdown here presents any big surprises. Certainly when it comes to electronic media, your prime pirate is a young, educated male.

These aggregate numbers do not tell us a lot, though. For example, the numbers show that purchases of pirated software and games is quite low, and yet we know that the piracy rate is extremely high in these industries. How so? Only suckers pay for that stuff, the rest download it for free.

Awareness was up over 10 percent in the last two years, and yet piracy rates were reportedly down only 3 1/2 percent in the past three years. Why? To me, this suggests (big shock) that awareness does not automatically translate into a cessation of piracy. Only 14.6 percent professed a lack of knowledge about fakes, and probably some of them were lying anyway — most people understand the issue but enjoy getting cheap stuff, that’s the simple truth.

The big "if" in the near term is what the government will say about the problem of digital media piracy after the Olympics are over. Everyone naturally assumes that the current crackdown will cease in September. CER has a good description of the current environment:

Having read an article in the LA Times with the ominous line, “DVD shops have pulled their stocks of pirated Hollywood films”, representatives from China Economic Review’s Beijing bureau hit the streets and did some old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting. For purely work-related purposes, of course.

The story was the same at several DVD mainstays throughout the city. Shelves once stacked with the latest Hollywood and Bollywood releases have been replaced with a paltry selection of “legal” offerings selling for around RMB30, if not more.

But if all this is possible, what will be the justification for things returning to "normal" later this year? Will there be an attempt to justify a relaxation of enforcement? I think this could all be politically troublesome, and I doubt that the MPAA and the US government, among others, are going to cut the PRC any slack on this?

Full post as published by China Hearsay on July 24, 2008 (boomark / email).