Lack of knowledge about copyright law and how to distinguish unauthorized publications may be one important reason for the rampant piracy industry in China, said a survey recently conducted by Nanjing University.

The survey indicated that most Chinese have complex attitudes towards piracy and they don't know much about copyright law, said Zhang Zhiqiang, chief with the Publishing Science Institute of Nanjing University.

The survey, a research project supported by the China National Social Science Foundation, mainly targeted urban residents, which account for roughly 20 percent of China's total population but buy80 percent of the books each year.

About 89.6 percent of the surveyed said piracy is unlawful but do not feel shame or guilt when they purchased fake products.

The majority of people agreed that pirates could jeopardize the publishing industry and more than 90 percent said it was necessary to strike unauthorized publication. However, 31.3 percent of people agreed that piracy can never be stopped due to the special situation in China. About 7.8 percent strongly agreed on that point.

According to the survey, most consumers were unsatisfied with the quality of pirated publications in spite of their extremely low prices.

Also most urban residents said that they could not tell unauthorized production from the legal ones. Sixty-two percent of the people said they do not know how to distinguish the illegal products from the authorized copies and 20 percent of them said there were the same. About 15.8 percent said that they had never heard of any information about piracy.

The survey sent out 600 questionnaires to communities in Nanjing; 552 were returned.

Zhang said that the publishing industry and relevant government departments should take more active measures to encourage people to boycott pirated products and educate them about copyright law.

(Xinhua News Agency February 16, 2005)