China's Role in Fighting Piracy

Due to its business model, piracy is like an infectious disease that can never be eradicated. Whenever companies implement new mechanisms to prevent piracy, it will not be long before someone comes up with a way to overcome them. Governments from around the world have also been doing their part in fighting piracy but to no avail. Does this mean we have no other options but to give up our fight?

Well, not really. Although the pirates are always able to stay one step ahead of us, this does not that the fight is over. There are still many things that we can explore to reduce if not stop piracy. And when it comes to government action, I believe no government can have a greater impact on the pirates than the Chinese government.

There are several reasons for me to make this statement. Firstly, the sheer size of China’s population means that the firm actions taken by the Chinese government on piracy can effectively starve the pirates of 1.2 billion customers. Skeptics may say that a large percentage of China’s population is still living below the poverty line and therefore should not be considered as potential customers. I don’t agree with this argument because here, we are talking about goods whose prices are so cheap that it is affordable even to the poorest segment of the Chinese society.

Secondly, piracy in China has evolved to such an extent that it gives the downloader of music/movies the impression that what he/she is doing is perfectly legal. By this, I mean that you can easily find and download music/movies from well-known websites. The excellent interface even allows one to sample the music first before downloading, to look for lyrics and even create a playlist of their favorite songs. Frankly speaking, I do not think there are many legal music/movies providers with such impressive and user-friendly interface.

Thirdly, China’s rising political and economic clout means that the number of people learning Chinese language is increasing rapidly. Consequently, the number of people that are capable of finding and accessing those pirated contents will also rise.

It is ironic and probably beyond the dreams of many artists, actors, actresses and directors that they have to depend on the Chinese for their very survival one day.