How to stop Piracy?

Several days ago, I got one call from my under-classmate in Notre Dame.
Now he worked as the sales director in one famous design software
company. He asked me about the electronic design industry in China. He
told me that everyone knows that China is a huge market but most
company hesitates to enter China market due to piracy.

Everyone knows that piracy has a significant impact on the high-tech
industry, resulting in lost jobs, decreased innovation and higher
costs. As a Chinese who has been working in USA for more than 10 yrs, I
understand his worry and I also believe Chinese government has realized
this. But it seems a mission impossible to stop piracy in a country
like China. But could anyone tell me what's the best way to solve the
piracy problem?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance!

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[Joel Kolstad]

<synkore@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1145341725.819586.317690@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

Several days ago, I got one call from my under-classmate in Notre Dame.
Now he worked as the sales director in one famous design software
company. He asked me about the electronic design industry in China. He
told me that everyone knows that China is a huge market but most
company hesitates to enter China market due to piracy.

I don't think it's piracy itself so much as the legal system now *recognizing*
piracy (and other intellectual property "issues") as much of a crime until
rather recently.

Everyone knows that piracy has a significant impact on the high-tech
industry, resulting in lost jobs, decreased innovation and higher
costs.

I suppose that depends on how you define "significant." You can never prove
how many pirated copies of some piece of software would have translated into
real revenue if piracy were impossible, so the best anyone can do is to make
rather broad estimates of the impacts of piracy. Some people will even argue
that software piracy helps long-term product sales as piracy becomes a form of
"advertising" and most people who do have the money to purchase the product
will then actually do so... but this too relies on an awful lot of
suppositions and strikes me as pretty much impossible to prove in any
meaningful context.

There are plenty of tangible (and measurable) costs associated with
implementing copy protection and end-users being forced to comply with it;
these are not insignificant.

As a Chinese who has been working in USA for more than 10 yrs, I
understand his worry and I also believe Chinese government has realized
this. But it seems a mission impossible to stop piracy in a country
like China. But could anyone tell me what's the best way to solve the
piracy problem?

I don't think anyone can tell you that -- although Googling "software piracy
prevention" will turn up a lot of hits! At least here in the U.S., once you
have a decent legal system in place to make piracy a crime, it's been up to
individual companies and private trade groups to seek out and prosecute
pirates. In many cases it's disgruntled former employees who turn in their
(former!) companies for widescale piracy.

One good way to prevent piracy is to get into the hardware business rather
than just the software business: Hardware designs are readily made much harder
to copy than software.

---Joel Kolstad