Last week, I picked up a copy of the China Daily's entertainment magazine, Beijing Weekend, and found a photograph of students in a local bookstore, with the following caption: 'In many bookstores around the city, readers equipped with digital cameras can be seen making use of the latest technology. These smart readers take pictures of pages they think useful and process them with computers into clear copies. By doing this, they save money. According to a member of staff at one bookstore, the practice is legal, just the same as copying with a pen. Such a relaxed attitude provides readers with a convenient learning environment.'
Convenient? Relaxed? I agree. In my student days, I would have been happy to walk into the nearest bookstore, photocopy a few pages, and use the spare change to buy beer. However, there are laws in place that would seem to make this practice rather awkward.
The caption points to a broader lack of concern with the niceties of ownership. The fact that it was slipped so casually into the paper suggests a glib acceptance by the editors of the practice of stealing intellectual property - quite surprising, given that reporters are usually very sensitive to seeing their words appropriated by competitors. Not surprisingly, the attitude at the China Daily is shared by many others.
At the tail end of the Lunar New Year, as the stores in Beijing gradually reawakened, I visited the Bai Now Department Store, the Beijing equivalent of the Wan Chai Computer Centre. Out front, I counted 12 people hawking pirated software and DVDs.
A few streets away is the State Council Press office where in December I took notes at a briefing by the Ministry of Customs regarding a crackdown on the importation of counterfeit goods from Hong Kong, all part of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement.
The impact is quite serious in the arts. Although China leads Asia in piracy, with 95 per cent of DVDs fake, I am less concerned with multinational profits than domestic development. Expats, an important source of cash for the arts, routinely order Chinese-made copies of Vietnam artists, an area considered hot these days. So Beijing artists are making copies of work by Hanoi painters instead of coming up with their own ideas.
