Piracy in China

The American Heritage Dictionary defines piracy as “the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted or patented material.” It is a problem that affects companies all over the world. Piracy of software, movies, and music is commonplace in China. China has the second worst piracy rate in the world; about 92 percent of the software in China is pirated (Williams 2004). Various companies and governments have attempted to combat piracy, but they had not seen much success until recent years. Combating piracy is a difficult task, especially in a country that has a history of not enforcing intellectual property laws.

Piracy costs companies and artists money. Companies spend millions of dollars on research and development to make software. Artists spend countless hours to film a movie or record an album. Record labels and movie production companies spend millions of dollars producing and marketing entertainment media. The companies’ and artists’ investments are supposed to be returned in the form of profits from the media that the companies and artists sell to the public. However, if “pirates” are selling illegal copies of the media, the companies do not make any