President Hu's Visit Series: A Long Way to Go Before Solving Piracy Problem

by Li Shuting

Chinese President Hu Jintao chose the Microsoft headquarters in Seattle as the first stop of his U.S. visit. During his talk with Bill Gates, President Hu restated that China would crack down on the problem of piracy. By this time, piracy has been recognized as not only a hot issue in Sino-US trade, but also a heavy headache for the Chinese government.

The hardest part in solving this problem is not to make it illegal to buy pirated-copies of products, but to make people realize its immorality. Though piracy has been recognized as an illegal act for many years, pirated products are still favorable choices of common people in China because of their low prices. That is also the reason why piracy is like a weed in the field--it will come back, however hard you try to eliminate it. As long as domestic demands exist, there will be supplies. As long as people do not consider it an immoral thing to do, they will not hesitate to buy pirated copies with low prices.

A serious promise was made. However, the problem is tough. It is necessary to impose more regulations for fighting piracy, and China has a long way to go before this problem is finally settled.