China now has relatively complete copyright legislation, said Shi Zongyuan, director of the State Press and Publication Administration, at a copyright conference held in Beijing Wednesday.
China's first copyright law appeared in September of 1990 after the country put copyright legislation high on the agenda in the early 1980s, said Shi, who is also director of the State Copyright Bureau, adding that several other such laws and regulations have been passed and enacted over the past decade.
Given China's growing integration with the global economy, legislators amended several copyright laws in 2001, including the Copyright Law, the Regulations for the Implementation of the Copyright Law and the Regulations for the Protection of Computer Software.
Meanwhile, China has spared no efforts in cracking down on piracy. From 1995 to 2002, national copyright administrations seized an estimated 197 million pirated items and dealt with 18,653 piracy cases, official statistics show.
(Xinhua News Agency March 27, 2003)
