A week before Windows 7 was released to the public, merchants in the busy Xinyang market in China were pushing it out to the public for as little as $2.93 each. Like any huge market, there are always knock offs and there are always "hot" or stolen items being sold for dirt cheap. It has appeared that Windows 7 has joined the ranks of these stolen items as well.
However, it should come as no surprise that Windows 7 has been a successful pirated program in China. After all, China boasts the second largest PC market in the world, and one would expect the Chinese to want the newest Operating System just like the rest of the world. However, China has a big problem in the way of piracy. According to Reuters.com:
Research firm IDC estimates about 80 percent of software sold in China was pirated last year. While that figure is falling, it is still double the global average and about four times that of developed markets such as the United States and Japan.
Piracy in China is slowly becoming less of a problem over the years due to extra government attention, but as you can see from above, a lot of damage has already been done.
And for the record, illegal file sharing is stealing.If you got something for free that you would otherwise normally have to pay for, then yes, it is stolen. It just makes a pirate a smarter thief than the average thief who walks into a retail store and pulls the item from the shelf and attempts to run through the door.
Thanks for reading!
Source: Reuters
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Comments
CORRECTION: Illegal file sharing is NOT stealing.
Are you serious? Nice try making it seem like I wrote that last comment, but yes, illegal file sharing is in fact stealing. If you acquire something that you should have paid for to obtain, and you were not given it as a gift from the creator or a store, then yes, you stole it. How do you not see the connection there?
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