Study On Software Piracy In China At Present

Nowadays, in the age of global information, it is more and more important for the development of the software industry. However, at present, our country is facing the extremely stem situation in this industry, the independent innovation ability of the software vendors is very poor and it is indeed a very serious problem for software piracy. As for the control of the software piracy, an intense debate among scholars arises. Some people think software piracy should be let go as righting against software piracy will prevent the diffusion of knowledge, harm the interests of consumers; Someone claims it is urgent to crack down on software piracy since it dampens the enthusiasm of the software vendors and the creativity; There are also some scholars insist that it is no difference for cracking down on software piracy or not, because the development of the software is spontaneous. What kind of attitude for us should be taken toward software piracy? Whether is it right or wrong to take stringent measures? Which is much more useful between the market mechanism and the legal sanction to control the software piracy? Nowadays, there is no clear answer in academia for questions above and they didn't combine the software piracy with the situation of China.This thesis attempts to utilize the relevant knowledge, such as the theory of the economy, sociology, law to research software piracy form various angles to propose constructive suggestions for solving the problems.First of all, it analyzes profoundly the economic characteristics, the type and the damage of the software piracy, uses the statistical data to reveal the seriousness of the software piracy, and summarizes the methods and correspondent limitations of the protection of law and technology. Then, it analyzes the reasons of the rampant software pirate from the economics, law, sociology angles.The core of this paper is to discuss the correct position for software piracy. Firstly, it affirms the necessity of the protection of the software. It uses the economic theory to explain it, utilizes the general theory of market equilibrium to analyze the connivance of Bill.Gates, and corrects the wrong view that the control of the software piracy is beneficial to the foreign software companies only. Then it strengthens the authenticity of the conclusion form the point of the order of the market, investment environment, the state's tax and employment opportunities. It also demonstrates that it is wrong to fight against software piracy very ruthlessly or indulge it, the "moderate protection" is the right way to choose, which also the way of preventing monopoly. This thesis analyzes the history of the intellectual property protection of USA by the historical method innovatively, which reveals that USA didn't fight against piracy for protecting its national interests. China should learn from this experience. Finally, it uses the transaction cost theory to verify that cracking down on software piracy seriously will increase transaction costs widely, which also demonstrates that China can implement the "strong protection" policy.To find the effective ways to control software piracy, firstly, it verifies the infeasibility of "full market mechanism "and "simple laws prohibition", then puts forward the corresponding policy from the government and software companies respectively.The view of this paper is relatively novel, avoiding the extremes of connivance and indulgency, combining with the actual situation of China, it proposed the right position towards software piracyThe weak point:Because of the shortage of the data, the thesis is not able to do some empirical test. Besides, the policy recommendations are biased towards the macro.