BEIJING - China's software piracy rate dropped 2 percentage points from 2009 to 2010, but the commercial value of the illegitimate software last year was up by 1.55 percent, to 130.94 billion yuan ($20.1 billion), a new survey shows.

The survey by Internet research firm Chinalabs said the overall piracy rate declined from 14 percent to 12 percent.

The State Intellectual Property Office commissioned Chinalabs to track such data since 2005. More than 4,800 individual and corporate respondents across the country participated, and results were released on Thursday.

Losses caused by the piracy accounted for 9 percent of the Chinese software market in 2010, down from 12 percent in 2009, according to the survey.

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The decline in the piracy rate was attributed to government campaigns to increase the use of legitimate software, the emergence of cheaper products offered by domestic companies, the wider availability of free programs and to more diversified software distribution channels.

The survey's report called for continuous support from governments and large companies in promoting legitimate software, which will reassure the software industry and guide consumers.

Zhang Qin, executive secretary of the China Association for Science and Technology, said China's software industry is undergoing a change in its development mode.

"Future profits depend more on providing online services," Zhang said. "Given this development, software piracy in China will further decrease."

However, he warned against complacency over the decline in the piracy rate because the number of unlicensed software installations continued to grow.

Earlier this month, the Office of the US Trade Representative said China was making progress in fighting online piracy, but it kept the country on its annual "priority watch list" for weak protection of intellectual property rights.

Also on Thursday, Business Software Alliance, a Washington trade group with members including IT giants Microsoft, Adobe and Cisco, released its latest annual global piracy report.

The report said China's piracy rate dropped from 79 percent in 2009 to 78 percent last year. It put the commercial value at $7.779 billion.