Image: Flickr/Tom Thai
China's reputation as a haven for internet pirates is slowly fading. The Chinese government announced last week that 2.2 million songs have been deleted as part of ongoing anti-piracy efforts, the Wall Street Journal reported.The deletions are a result of an order by the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC), which asked digital service providers to remove pirated content from their systems by the end of the July. While some reports indicate that some companies didn't immediately comply, the administration's announcement that millions of songs have been deleted suggest that the strategy is working after all.Piracy in China is a huge issue, to say the very least, making the announcement of particular importance when it comes to North American companies perceiving China as a place where online business can be done without the fear of being ripped off by millions of pirates.Last year, the US Trade Representative estimated in a report that 99 percent of music downloads in China are illegal. The issue isn't contained to music, either; Microsoft rolled out a free Windows 10 update to millions of Chinese people, regardless of whether they pirated their initial copy or not, just to get a legit foot in the door with pirates.But things have been changing in China. Recently, streaming services have been busy suing the absolute hell out of each other to protect songs they've paid to license from their competitors, who may stream them for free because fuck it. Last week's announcement from the NCAC is just one more indicator that the online services industry in China is warming up to fighting piracy.