Piracy, a business in China

By ETCO


O Globo, 29/01/2005


Piracy in China? country where everything is copied from cars to Brazilian guarana? it also hits the publishing sector hard. According to Gilberto Scofield Jr., a GLOBO correspondent in Beijing, China's largest bookstore chain, state-owned Xinhua, decided to take a hit on piracy with a general 20% reduction in book prices. The average price of books in China is 25 yuan, or $ 3,04.


The chain sells more than 200 titles, earned a turnover of 300 million yuan (US $ 36,2 million) last year and has a monopoly on the sale of elementary and high school textbooks. However, according to Xinhua's general manager, Li Bing, many private bookstores in the country also already feel the impact of piracy, with falling sales. Street vendors sell books on the corners of Beijing for 10 yuan. In Brazil, where books are very expensive compared to the purchasing power of the population, the piracy technology of books is still not widespread.