100,000 software products to be protected by 2015

BEIJING - China's publishing regulator is placing a high priority on reining in copyright piracy and making the country's press-and-publication industry better able to stand up to foreign competitors, in accordance with the country's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015).

To double the output value of China's press-and-publication industry, the General Administration of Press and Publication will work to adopt standard procedures to be used in the registration of copyrights and copyright contracts.

The administration wants more than 100,000 computer software products and 600,000 other products to be under copyright protection by 2015, up from the 81,000 software products and 370,000 other products protected by 2010.

In the campaign, Wang Ziqiang, director of the copyright department of the National Copyright Administration, said his department's role is to make the legal system better able to curb copyright infringements, to keep disputes over ownership rights out of court through the use of mediation and to make the public more aware of the need for copyright protection.

From 2006 to 2010, the General Administration of Press and Publication and its local offices issued administrative penalties in 49,416 copyright infringement cases, closed more than 128,493 illegal companies and confiscated 317 million pirated products.

Central government agencies and the headquarters of 129 large State-owned enterprises have fulfilled their pledges to respect the copyrights on the software they use, and 12,200 other large enterprises have met similar goals, according to statistics from the administration.

The public has become more aware of the reasons why copyright protections exist. In 2010, 75 percent of the Chinese were aware of copyright issues, up from 60.6 percent in 2006. The General Administration of Press and Publication said it wants that figure to be up to 80 percent by 2015.

The administration further plans to see China's press-and- publication industry attain an annual output value of 2.94 trillion yuan ($450 billion) by 2015, up from 1.22 trillion yuan in 2010.

China plans to do this, in part, by nurturing businesses that export products. The General Administration of Press and Publication wants to see $42 million worth of publications and $1 billion worth of digital products and publication services exported by 2015.

In 2010, $200 million was made from the export of online games produced in China. Also lucrative were sales of digital books and printed publications in foreign countries, according to the administration.

And, for the first time, the press-and-publication industry has made plans to conserve energy, said Fan Weiping, director of the publishing industry development department of the General Administration of Press and Publication.

Technology is expected to make an increasing contribution to the industry's prosperity and to lead to the waste of less energy. More than 30 percent of the country's printing firms are expected to go green by 2015, Fan said.

With a rapid pace of change set for the country's press-and-publication industry, copyright protection has become an important issue. The goals set to ensure such protection exists cannot be reached without close cooperation from administrative and judicial authorities, said Sun Jingping, a copyright lawyer in Beijing.

In 2010, the Supreme People's Court heard 42,931 civil cases concerned intellectual property rights. They were valued at 8 billion yuan, according to the court's annual report, which was released on Tuesday.