Getting copyright religion

It has been a matter of faith among those watching China business for some time that the only thing which would drive significant changes in the chaotic intellectual property environment was domestic self interest. We were interested, therefore, to see this piece in the People's Daily Online about the success of blogs in China driving a growing interest in copyright protection.

The article suggests:

With a huge influx of participants, China's booming blogs are becoming a highly profitable way of online commerce, raising the issue of blog copyright.


Highly profitable blogs may be a little thin on the ground, but the concept is interesting. The article goes on:

BSPs are looking for business models to profit from the huge blogsphere. Hexun.com has set up an advertising alliance for blogs, promoting their popular blogs to advertisers and drawing them to post ads on the blogs.

More and more business people have become aware that blogs could eventually become a highly profitable way of musing rather than simply a lonely stage for online blathering.

According to a report released by the Internet Society of China, the number of bloggers is expected to hit 60 million by the end of this year. There were an estimated 100 million blogs worldwide and about 16 million in China in 2005.

Some questions elsewhere on the Internet about the projection but a trend worth following for sure.