What Factors Affect Computer Software Prices?

Computer software infringement and piracy frequently occur, and it is a high-incidence case in recent years. In the software industry, with the emergence of various magneto-optical media, the progress of replication technology and the development of the Internet, the forms of piracy have also diversified.

Analysis of computer software piracy

Preface Why should I choose computer software piracy as a research object

At the same time, in a deeper sense, we also realize that the knowledge economy has profoundly changed the way of life, communication, and contact for all of us worldwide. From the original separation of tens of thousands of miles to the now closely connected "Global Village" People are getting closer and closer, and the links between countries are getting closer and closer. In all these processes, knowledge is playing a greater and greater role, and the importance of intellectual property rights is self-evident. Figurative. As noted by the famous futurist Toffler: "Global competition at least means that we cannot return to the consistency of the production-line era, uniformity, and bureaucratic and physical economy. The three waves are not just a question of technology and economics. It involves ethics, culture, ideas, and institutional and political structures. In short, it means a real change in human affairs. "He also pointed out these aspects of the social paradigm The changes must also be reflected in the law; more importantly, the law, while adapting to this type of social development, also shoulders the mission of promoting economic and social progress and development.

All of these seem to be just the narratives of futurists yesterday, but they have deeply affected our lives today. Our newspapers, magazines, televisions and other media continue to report on software issues, piracy issues, academic magazines, scientific papers, long-term research on piracy issues, and real-life legislation, law enforcement, and judicial activities against computer software, There has been great interest in this issue. Here, I systematically give the reasons and basis for writing this article. I will discuss it in two aspects, macro and micro.

Macro level analysis of computer software piracy

1. Former Chief Negotiator of China's accession to the World Trade Organization, Chief Representative of China and the United States on China's accession to the World Trade Organization Negotiation Team, and Long Yongtu, Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, when interviewed by media reporters, they must talk about these negotiations China's intellectual property rights are a difficult issue, and the entire negotiation process can hit the ground at any time. It is this core issue that he himself has the most trouble working.

2. The following examples have been recorded in all the books published in China that document the negotiations on China's accession to the World Trade Organization. Former China joined the World Trade Organization negotiator, former Minister of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, and current State Councilor Wu Yi, who was head-to-head during a negotiation with the US representative. The Americans said: "We are negotiating with thieves. This means that China's piracy is serious, while Wu Yi pointed out: "We are negotiating with robbers." This means that the United States has once robbed cultural relics of China and the habit of robbers on the American side in the entire WTO negotiations.

3. According to the latest statistics from the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the largest lobbying organization for software companies in the United States, China s software piracy rate in 2001 reached 92%, which is only lower than Vietnam s 94%. The following are in order: 87% in Russia, 70% in India, 53% in Taiwan, 37% in Japan, and 25% in the United States. Such figures have every reason to worry about the Chinese software market. However, BSA senior Asia Pacific official Jeffrey Haiti did not kill China's software market. The excessively high software piracy rate is indeed far from China's desire to become a high-tech economic powerhouse, but he believes that China's software piracy industry is on the defensive. This optimistic estimate comes from a comparison with data from the previous year. China's software piracy rate in 2000 was as high as 94%, which indicates that China is developing in a good direction. China has taken a series of measures to combat pirated software. Haiti says they believe the Chinese government has recognized the value of the software industry to the entire economy. They are convinced that China's software piracy rate will be further reduced.

The Cisco infringement case against Huawei has already made headlines in recent press. People are beginning to worry about China's intellectual property protection. While the two companies are competing in the United States, industry experts in Asia, such as Haiti, generally believe that China is vigorously escaping its reputation for piracy. Here we show that BSA is an industry alliance that includes members such as Apple, Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft, and they have been lobbying China to fight piracy for many years.

4. China's recent legislative, enforcement and judicial activities on software and software piracy:

In 2001, China revised its copyright law and established a copyright protection system that complies with the basic principles of international copyright protection standards. The revised copyright law can also help China to fully implement the relevant treaties and provide minimum standards of protection for Internet copyrighted works.

· In 2002, China formally implemented copyright law and revised other software-related regulations to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights.

· On October 12, 2002, the High Court issued a judicial interpretation that companies using pirated software will be subject to civil penalties. This provides a legal basis for BSA to bring related lawsuits. "Now we have a way to protect our rights," Haiti said.

These measures are already having an effect. In the second half of 2002, the Chinese police searched two companies in Shanghai that used pirated software and eventually reached a civil settlement with the BSA. Haiti did not say the exact amount of the fine, but said that the two companies "paid tens of thousands of dollars for this." This is already a considerable figure in China. BSA is currently conducting similar civil legal actions in several other cities in China. In a software piracy verdict awarded by the United States Autodesk on November 14, the Shanghai court fined the defendant company with a fine of $ 60,000, which is already the upper limit in Chinese copyright law.

Micro-level analysis of computer software piracy

1. The most direct micro-factor is undoubtedly that I purchased a desktop computer on January 7, 2002. In the following installation process, I had to purchase a lot of software, such as OfficeXP, Arcobat, Norton Antivirus and so on. However, the price of these software is far more than I expected. In the retail market, the price of a set of OfficeXP is 3999 yuan (about 480 US dollars). It is a well-known fact that the per capita GDP of Shanghai, China's most developed city, is 3,100 US dollars. This means that one needs to spend 1/7 of its annual output value to buy a set of genuine OfficeXP software, which is obviously an unrealistic idea. What is causing this amazing divide? This is a question that interests me.

2. More interesting is the following fact. In the law school I am in, I should say that the copyright awareness here should be stronger than the general public. However, the author also found with regret that the students around them were more concerned about the piracy issue, and whether the pirated software they purchased was compatible with their own computers. At the same time, my classmates who were studying together in Shanghai and colleagues around me could not give a satisfactory answer to the piracy problem in my related investigation. My data is: Of all the software, only "Haojie Cinema" and "Jinshan Ciba" are genuine software, and the remaining 15 software are pirated. low. Can our law students give a reasonable explanation for this abnormal phenomenon?

After discussing the macro and micro factors of my own research on piracy, I will mention in passing why in this article some of the legislation, law enforcement and judicial related activities in Changning District are selected as my research objects? This is also due to the following reasons:

1. First of all, subject to my limited resources, including research funding and my research experience, I can no longer afford to undertake research on a larger scale. My research funding is limited, but more importantly, I find that I cannot afford my experience at the thesis presentation stage after the investigation. If a larger area is selected, this article will be reduced to a pile of specific numbers and cannot show the legal and sociological reasons for the piracy that the author wants to emphasize. At the same time, as I was depressed to see that there were not many peers interested in this area, there were undoubtedly inherent deficiencies in the collection of data, legal analysis, and sociology. Therefore, the authors of the larger sample were not selected.

2. The school where the author himself is located is Changning District, Shanghai. According to the discussions by the Shanghai Municipal Government and Shanghai-related media, Changning District is at the upper midstream level in the entire Shanghai district and county, and it is at a medium level in Shanghai in terms of per capita wages, living environment, and ideology. Therefore, choosing Changning District as its own research object is undoubtedly representative to a certain extent.

3 Another reason that cannot be ignored is that in the following discussion, we will see that in our country, the administrative law enforcement department is a very powerful institution. It is undoubtedly the grass-roots cultural inspection brigade that has a greater say in piracy. I am fortunate to have received the strong assistance of the Shanghai Changning District Cultural Inspection Brigade during the investigation of this article. The Changning District Cultural Inspection Brigade is responsible for piracy control in the entire Changning District.