China's software piracy rate dropped from 14% in 2009 to 12% in 2010, down 14 percentage points over 2005, according to the 2010 China Software Piracy Survey issued on May 12.

The amount-based piracy rate dropped 45% in 2009 to 41% in 2010, down 25 percentage points over 2005. Office applications are the biggest targets for pirates, followed by applications for programming, information security and web page design while mapping information and industry-specific applications are in the least dangerous situation.

Pirated software is estimated to have cost the software industry 133.64 billion yuan in 2010, the value-based piracy rate was 9% in 2010, down 3 and 17 percentage points over 2009 and 2005 respectively.

The decline in the piracy rate was attributed to government campaigns to increase the use of legitimate software, the emergence of cheaper products offered by domestic companies, the wider availability of free programs and more diversified software distribution channels.

(China IP News)