The head of an influential anti-piracy lobby group for the computer software industry plans to ask leaders elsewhere in Greater China to adopt intellectual property laws similar to those in Hong Kong.
Business Software Alliance (BSA) president Robert Holleyman said Hong Kong's laws and enforcement programme should be used as a model for the mainland and Taiwan.
Mr Holleyman said he would ask high-level government officials in Beijing and Taipei to consider the move during his visit to the cities later this week.
Robert Kruger, a former United States federal prosecutor and now vice-president responsible for enforcement with the BSA, recently said Hong Kong had the best anti-piracy laws and enforcement programme in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Intellectual Property (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, which came into effect on April 1 last year, criminalised the use of pirated software by a business. The Government claimed to have eliminated 90 per cent of stores selling pirated software through enforcement efforts, and spends HK$8 million annually on anti-piracy education.
There has been some debate on the effectiveness of Hong Kong's anti-piracy efforts, as knock-off software is still readily available in computer malls.
According to the BSA's 2001 global report on software piracy, 53 per cent of the software used in Hong Kong was illegally copied, down from 57 per cent in 2000. The mainland had one of the worst piracy rates at 92 per cent, trailing only Vietnam's 94 per cent.
