The Beijing Municipality has lately vowed that the government organizations at all levels in Beijing will use copy-righted software as scheduled, making Beijing the first local government for conducting the promotion of using the authorized software products in China.
The National Copyright Administration, the State Development Planning Commission, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Information Industry have jointly publicized a notice on August 29, 2001, requiring government departments to buy authorized software from then on and a special budget must be set side for it next year. They have to bear civil and administrative liabilities if violations are found made. The move indicates the Chinese government has taken a firm step forward in cracking down on software piracy.
On China's impending entry into WTO, to fight software piracy is imperative under the present situation. According to authorities, every year sees the authorized software suffer a direct loss of over RMB 40bn yuan from piracy in China. Person concerned estimated that in the next three to five years the market of government users could lead to a threefold to fivefold increase in China's software market.
As reported, China is rectifying the Regulations for the Protection of Computer Software which was published in1991, especially with the explicit rules and liabilities to be imposed on the person who illegally decodes or copies the authorized software.
(People's Daily November 02, 2001)
