On May 26, "Survey on China's Software Piracy Rate in 2008" was officially released. The survey shows that in 2008, the sales of China's software industry reached 757.3 billion Renminbi yuan. The proportion of pirated software in the whole software industry dropped from 20% in 2007 to 15% in 2008 if calculated by the economic value of pirated software. The proportion decreased from 56% to 47% by sets of software installed.
The main reasons behind the decline in piracy rates are: legalization of pre-installed operating system software by PC manufacturers, completion of genuine software installation within government agencies and large enterprises, anti-piracy actions by software industries by both technical and legal means, promotion and free-to-use of major software products, increasing awareness of IP protection for software by consumers, software network, increasing number of free-of-charge software products.
