China DVD piracy down to only 95% -progress !

[BJ_M]

Wang Jingchuan, China's top intellectual-property official, confessed to an audience at the FORTUNE Global Forum last month that he was under a lot of pressure in his "very challenging job." As if to illustrate his point, fellow panelist Dan Glickman, the former Congressman who now heads the Motion Picture Association of America, immediately complained that 95% of the DVDs and other recorded entertainment sold in China are pirated, the highest rate in the world. And guess what Wang pointed to as a sign of progress: The central government is clamping down on the use of pirated software—in central government offices.

While intellectual-property protection in China remains weak, experts say they can see how the problem will be solved: when China has its own IP to protect. Says Paul Gewirtz, who heads the China Law Center at Yale Law School: "The pressure thus far has come from foreign companies, but the Chinese won't find the political will until domestic enterprises have their own reasons to want stronger enforcement."

David Frazee, an IP lawyer with Greenberg Traurig in Palo Alto who was on the same panel in Beijing, already detects increased enforcement in software, semiconductors, and telecom equipment—businesses in which Chinese research and development spending is rising rapidly. "And I guarantee you'll see movement for trademarks like the rings for the Beijing Olympics in 2008," he says, "because that's where the money is for them."

Some Western companies operating in China are starting to add a new element to their IP-protection strategy: local industrial development. Philips, the Dutch electronics company, helped three Chinese universities start programs to train experts in intellectual property. But Microsoft, which may be losing more sales in China to illegal copying than any other company, has gone even further. It is helping China build a local software industry. One example: It conceived, co-financed, and helps run a company in Shanghai called Wicresoft, which provides customer support in multiple languages for Chinese software companies operating internationally. "Now the top people in the country bring IP issues up to me, instead of the other way around," says Craig Mundie, Microsoft's senior vice president for policy, who has traveled to China regularly for five years.

The most notable improvement in IP protection so far has been in the attitude of China's leaders. Yale's Gewirtz is impressed that IP commissioner Wang would appear publicly next to outspoken critic Glickman. Some IP laws were recently tightened, and enforcement is improving: Three counterfeiters were recently sent to jail for copying a Philips light bulb.

But even optimists caution that China—where according to some estimates as much as one-third of the economy is dependent on counterfeit goods—has reasons to go slowly on IP protection. "This is sort of the opiate of the masses," says lawyer Frazee. "Giving people in China near-free or supercheap DVDs, music, and designer clothing is a good way of convincing them there is economic progress." Adds Microsoft's Mundie: "It will be some years before there is hard-core progress."

[MeDiCo_BrUjO]

"Giving people in China near-free or supercheap DVDs, music, and designer clothing is a good way of convincing them there is economic progress."

Sounds familiar to me. I think most of it it's true as it also applies here.

[RottenFoxBreath]

wheres the alternate universe where piracy in china is 100%,so they can make claims like that.
oh thats right,there isnt one,its all bullshit.
f*cking glickman,what a tosser.

[celtic_druid]

A lot of it is cultural. Copyright is a relatively new concept, even in the west.

[adam]

In China hell yeah, they didn't have copyright law until 2001 but for most of the rest of the world, and especially in the West, Copyright law is very old. For most countries it dates back to the late 1700's.

China has just been the hotbed of copyright infringement for so long its considered the norm. I don't know about that 95% number but it wouldn't suprise me at all.

[celtic_druid]

1700 was not that long ago. Let along late 1700's.

I seem to recall hearing that if you were an author in the UK you used to have to publish in the US first, because if you published in the UK first, you weren't protected in the US. So international copyright is an even newer concept.

[kirpen]

It will be interesting to see how many congress people and other government high-up retire from government to work in the industry that's lobbying to take away all consumer rights.

[BJ_M]

when they retire - they don't need to work anywhere else

[adam]

Hmm, generally 200 years is considered a very long time in the law. Copyrights are actually one of the more established areas of the law, except in places like China where they have only just now started to recognize the concept.

Btw there is no such thing as an international copyright.

[BJ_M]

i guess the closest thing would be the "BERNE CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF
LITERARY AND ARTISTIC WORKS" Paris 1971 draft


http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html

[BJ_M]

or these

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ38a.pdf

[adam]

Yes you've got various international treaties (Berne, Paris, TRIPS) which govern enforceability of national intellectual property rights in the other signatory countries. The treaties set the minimum level of protection for their respective areas (copyrights, patents, trademarks) and each country is free to provide as much additional protection to the IP holders as they wish. You can more or less enforce your own IP law in any signatory country. Even though most of the "major" countries are signatories this still represents a minority of the countries in the world.

Then you've also got specific treaties between just a couple of countries which set whichever terms they want.

But there is no worldwide standard and there is no means by which you can enforce a national right in all countries. If you want a registered copyright in each of the countries governed by, the Berne Treaty for example, you've still got to individually file with each of their national governments (assuming they require a filing.)

[BJ_M]

yea - first thing they say at the copyright.gov office is no such thing as an international copyright

lots of little, sometimes strange, specific treaties (besides the few big ones and such)