Bill Gates this morning on CNBC talked about the gravity of intellectual property theft in China, where he says Microsoft products get used 10 times as much as they actually get licensed:
"China has been a disaster if you say per unit of your product that gets used, how much do you get paid. It's been over 10-1 versus the United States and even like 4-1 versus India. and so it is a uniquely high piracy market. Now ... that number's been coming down somewhat.
Gates, chairman of the software company he founded, said the numbers have been much higher in China than elsewhere because government offices and big companies in China frequently don't pay for software they're using. That's uncommon in western countries, where software piracy is more typical at smaller companies or more individual levels, he said.
Marlin Steel has been active on this issue, through owner Drew Greenblatt's leadership on the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the National Alliance for Jobs and Innovation (NAJI). NAJI is specifically seeking to heighten awareness about the economic costs of intellectual property theft. Marlin Steel has reported on its own experiences of its intellectual property being pirated in China and India.
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