Rest easy, the campaign is finally over.

We can all now sleep without the fear of jack-booted thugs breaking down our doors. Now that the “100 Day Campaign Against Piracy” has officially ended. That’s right, as of last week, October 25th, the campaign is officially over and we can all go back to our regularly scheduled lives.What? What do you mean you didn’t even know there was a campaign against piracy?! You didn’t notice that all the shops selling pirated DVD’s and clothes were closed? Didn’t see all the knock off computer equipment dealers shuttered for the last three months?Yea, I didn’t either.In case you want to know how the campaign went you can check here. But if you don’t want to take (waste) the time I’ll give you a free review of the People’s Daily report: millions of illegal DVD’s destroyed! Thousands of illegal shops closed down! Hundreds of illegal manufactures arrested! There are no more illegal goods in China. None!Ok. The reality is that most, if not all, those who were affected by the government’s campaign are already back in business this week. At least they already are here in SZ. Lohu Commercial Market (featured on 20/20 last year as one of the biggest illegal goods markets in China) is going strong and actually never slowed down at all in the last 90 days. In fact, I would dare say that business is up as Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou all host international trade fairs this month.Why isn’t anything done about this is China, you might ask. The answer, I might tell you, is money. Pure and simple.• China is the #1 source for illegal goods and the #2 market ($63.5 billion) in the world.• At $334 billion annually, the US has the largest market fore illegal products in the world (larger than all the rest of the world combined!!).• Total world market for illegal goods is approximately $1.085 trillion USD/year (China’s GDP is estimated at $2.22 trillion/annually).• For more status see this. or this.A conservative estimate is that China’s market (domestic/international) for illegal goods is going to be somewhere over $200 billion USD annually. With a GDP of $2.2 trillion ($8.89 trillion when adjusted for purchasing power), that’s almost 10% of China’s GDP in illegal goods annually. It’s obvious that for Chinese officials, who are numbers and development/growth addicted, there is little incentive for enforcement of copyright laws. In fact there are hundreds of billions of reasons NOT to do anything. Which is exactly what happens as soon as the campaign is over.