Hu Yong and Tim O’Reilly on copyright and piracy in publishing
Hu Yong and Tim O’Reilly on copyright and piracy in publishing
Beginning with “Chinese authors blame search giant Baidu for copyright infringement – with comment“, I’ve tracked the development of this case in several posts, the latest being “Copyright negotiations fail: Baidu accuses authors of insincerity, denies requests“. Two days ago I read posts on blogs by China Media Project and Forbes published on the same day, both treating copyright and piracy in publishing:
Hu Yong ends his excellent editorial Can we tolerate Baidu’s “evil” stand on IP rights? (published in English by China Media Project on 25 March) on many aspects of Baidu’s copyright problems with this statement: “Addressing this problem at its source, however, will require the awakening of Chinese users to the problem of copyright violation. Chinese internet users have to understand that the failure to protect rights of any kind is a net loss for Chinese society.”
On the same day, a Forbes blog published Tim O’Reilly on Piracy, Tinkering, and the Future of the Book, in which he is thus quoted: “I think having 100,000 [books] in circulation and selling 10,000 is way better than having just the 10,000 that are paid for and nobody else benefits. People who don’t pay you generally wouldn’t have paid you anyway. We’re delighted when people who can’t afford our books don’t pay us for them, if they go out and do something useful with that information. I think having faith in that basic logic of the market is important.”
In my opinion, these statements indeed lead to the core of the problem: Massive “free” distribution of a work in China due to (still mostly) uncontrolled piracy will not cause a certain number of books actually being sold additionally. There’s less a “social marketing” face of piracy in China, some freeloaders might actually pay under different circumstances, instead of being paid in points by Baidu for each download of a – usually copyrighted – work uploaded by them.
lThe legal environment for copyright protection has improved and will be strengthened significantly in the coming years as decided during the “two sessions”. However, each individual’s necessary acceptance of rights protection and thus his willingness to pay will take more time – and until then, I wouldn’t have faith in the basic logic of the market in China.
Update (29 March 2011): Offbeat China’s post Chinese netizens’ double standard towards copyright – Online poll provides survey data and states: “Judging from these results, one can sense Chinese netizens’ double standard toward copyrights issues.”