Copyright Social Welfare Issues And Predatory Pricing

Copyright has two faces. On one hand, copyright protects the right of its inventors, stimulating invention and innovation, pushing the social improvement. On the other hand, it cares about the social welfare after its works are produced, but not only the inventors' right. The aim of this is also to push improvement. China is a special developing country who owns imaginable market power but who is very incomplete. The setting-up of Chinese software industry preceeded to the time when Bill Gates drop his academic and run into software industry. Chinese software industry had its self-developed Chinese operation system. But the problem in the practice is ignoring of market at the early Chinese software industry. To day, the Window Operation System of Microsoft has occupied above 95% of market share of China. The software empire, Microsoft, circuits with Chinese consumers, its Chinese trade brothers, Chinese government, and the pirates, and scrabbles for the remained welfare, with the equipment of predatory pricing, after he have gained enough profits in his American market. The material processes of Microsoft are software price war and legislation lobbying outside the State Department. Among this, it comes up with the dispute of Chinese new "computer software protection ordinance". Most of non-governmental scholars of economics and law appealed for the "super-world protection level" about software copyright protection. The software industry is a nature monopolized. Further, the artificial barriers and the nature barriers keep the high profit level of software. However, Microsoft is unwilling to transfer the remained welfare to consumers, and still make extra profit from Chinese software market. It is predatory pricing that help Microsoft to hold the monopolization place, and predatory pricing is also one of the perfect methods to establish software industry monopolization. Pirate is the apparent form of predatory pricing. At thesame time, Microsoft is still unwilling to set a reasonable price, because the reasonable price will hinder Microsoft from grasping more remained welfare. Carrying the method of predatory pricing parallels with market control power. And getting copyright protection is an important way to gain market control power. So, impacting the legislation becomes another main way to gain market control power. Besides, this paper has touched the renting behavior of software industry. In short, this paper describes the researches about copyright social welfare from sixty' twenty century, and analyzes Microsoft's market behaviors and its strategies in Chinese software market.