Why Kindle in China Won’t Work

Let me start with a story I heard from an editor friend from Shanghai: a publisher recently ordered all of its employees to delete the Microsoft Office on their computer and replace it with WPS office, an Office clone made by KingSoft.

The reason for this switch is venal: Microsoft is at the gate, demanding 5000 Yuan per head. Threatened, the publisher simply decided to steal from Kingsoft; if they come a-knocking, I am sure the publisher will steal from somewhere else instead of paying a cent.

Now, if anyone should be interested in protecting intellectual right, it should be the publishers, whose goods are often plagiarized, downloaded, even counterfeited outright. However, the friend who relayed this story to me, an editor at the publisher, asked me why Americans are always so adamant in enforcing the law.

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