BEIJING, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- More than 845,000 publications were registered in China for copyright protection in 2013, up about 23 percent year-on-year, official statistics showed on Wednesday.

A spokesman from the National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) told a press conference that more than half of registrations were made in Beijing.

Yu Cike, director of the NCAC copyright management department, attributed the growth to increased awareness of copyright protection and the use of copyright as an important financing device.

Photographs accounted for more than half of registrations, and applications for software protection rose by about 18 percent in 2013, to more than 164,000.

Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang topped the list of growth regarding software, with applications growing by about 95 percent in Tibet.