Recently, SIPO holds an examination conference in Beijing to assess the research of the piracy ratios in China’s software industry in 2007, a soft science research program of SIPO undertaken by chinalabs.com. SIPO Deputy Commissioner Zhang Qin presides over the conference.

Addressing the conference, Mr. Zhang fully affirmed the scientific research methods used in the investigation and the reliability of the research results, stressing that efforts should be made to earnestly organize the next-step work of publicizing the results and media promotion. He hopes that China could launch the research of comparing China’s research data of software piracy ratios with those publicized by U.S.-based Business Software Alliance.

According to the research, the piracy ratio of the entire industry, calculating on the basis of market values, decreases from 24 percent in 2006 to 20 percent in 2007, and that of pay computer software, on the basis of the number of sets, drops from 63 percent to 56 percent during the same period of time. The piracy ratio of pay computer software products used by units drops from 39 percent to 35 percent while that of computer software products used by individuals decreases from 78 percent to 69 percent. In recent years, China’s efforts of promoting genuine software in government departments and enterprises have achieved positive results, especially the policy of compulsory installation of computer operation system, which restrains the practice of pirating operation system, a sector most seriously influenced by piracy. The piracy ratio in this sector also drops from 68 percent to 39 percent.

The examination panel listens to the report delivered by the research group and inquires into some specific questions. After deliberation, the panel members believe unanimously that by using the same concept system and calculating model as that used in the previous two researches, the research group ensures the stability of researching methods and the comparability of researching results. By comprehensively using various methods such as guild data, sample investigation, interview and expert estimation, investigating and estimating various data like the number of software products installed by computer users, sales of software products and their average prices that year, calculating the number of pirated software products and their market values according to the market prices, the research group calculates two software piracy ratios according to the number of sets of computer software products installed and according to the values calculated on the basis of market prices respectively. The result shows the trends of China’s software consumption and piracy, objectively reflecting the effect of China’s efforts in software protection. It can serve as an important decision-making basis to formulate and implement IP policies.

The Panel suggests that the research group should increase the number of samples and preciseness of data processing and improve data accumulation in the future researches. Measures should be taken to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with related foreign institutions, actively launch internationalized analysis and comparison so as to improve the understanding to the development of software industry and rules of IP protection in this industry, providing solid decision-making basis for launching software IP protection and developing software industry.

The research of the piracy ratio in China’s software industry in 2007 is the continuation of the special researches launched in 2005 and 2006. The examination panel consists of Sun Jiaguang, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, who also head the panel, Wang Ziqiang, Director General of the Department of Copyright of the National Copyright Administration, Hu Kunshan, Assistant Director General of China Software Industry Association, Li Shunde, Professor of IPR Center of China Academy of Social Sciences, Li Wei, Researcher of Copyright Protection Center of China, Shi Qingyan, Deputy Researcher of the Research Institute of Statistical Sciences of the National Bureau of Statistics of China and Mao Jinsheng, Deputy Director of SIPO Development Planning Department. Related people from relative SIPO departments and chinalabs.com also participate in the examination conference.

2008-05-12

2008-05-12