China's fighting against piracy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, December 21, 2003

China's fighting against piracy - a long way to go

Zhong Yumei, boss of Tuyi Audio and Video Shop in Guangzhou city of south China's Guangdong province, said she is happy to be selling several hundred genuine copyrighted discs every day.

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Zhong Yumei, boss of Tuyi Audio and Video Shop in Guangzhou city of south China's Guangdong province, said she is happy to be selling several hundred genuine copyrighted discs every day.

"It's much better than in past years and more people are coming back to look for discs with copyrights," said Zhong.

Zhong's experience agrees with the statistics from the Guangdong Audio-Video Products City, a wholesale market which accounts for 80 percent of the country's total market share of audio and video products.

The statistics show that in 2000, the market sold 607 million yuan of audio and video products, up 35 percent on 1999. The 2001 figure stood at 880 million yuan and 2002 at 1.6 billion yuan.

Experts attributed the booming sales of copyrighted discs to the successful fight against piracy in the country.

China has stepped up its all-out war against disc piracy since late 1980s. Latest statistics show that from September 1996 to October 2003, police seized 165 production counterfeit compact disc production lines. Suppose that each production line turned out an average of 20,000 discs a day, the efforts prevented hundreds of millions of pirated products from flooding into the market.

While cracking down on the source of pirated discs, the government also strengthened management of the distribution sector.

But pirated compact discs still surface in peddlers' bags or small stores in most areas of the country, due to the high profits available.

Low prices are the main reason for customers to choose pirated products, said experts, noting that the enhancement of the public's awareness of intellectual property rights is also indispensable in the campaign.

In Yuefu Shopping Mall in Guangzhou city, a woman surnamed Chen was choosing from a pile of pirated discs. "I always buy a lot of discs and could not afford the high prices of copyrighted ones," said Chen, who works in a bank.

Usually, copyrighted discs cost around 100 yuan, while pirated discs are less than 10 yuan.

Experts also said the lack of production capacity for genuine products was a root cause of piracy. Statistics from the China Audio-Video Association show that China's legal disc production lines had an annual capacity of 600 million discs, while the total sales volume in the whole country reached 5 billion.

"The lagging cultural industry in China cannot meet people 's explosive demand, leaving a vast market for piracy," said Liu Guoxiong, director in charge of the association. The country still has a long way to go in the campaign, added Liu.

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