The Chinese government has ordered municipal and local authorities to buy computers with pre-installed legitimate software in an effort to discourage pirated products.

All domestically-made and imported computers are also required to be sold with legitimate software pre-installed, according to the National Copyright Administration.

"This is an effort to prevent software piracy at source," Wang Ziqiang, spokesman of the National Copyright Administration, said Monday. "These policies will strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights."

The two circulars, jointly issued by the National Copyright Administration, the Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Commerce and other ministries, require software providers give computer producers favorable prices and services to support the pre-installation.

The circulars require computer manufacturers and software providers to report sales volumes and the number of pre-installed software systems by the end of February each year.

China has been promoting legitimate software among central, provincial and municipal government departments since 2002.

"The government is planning to promote legitimate software use among enterprises and companies," Wang said.

Wang said companies were free to choose whichever operating system best suited them.

Source: Xinhua