China is lax on piracy says US
p2p news / p2pnet: The entertainment and software cartels are continuing to turn up the heat on Communist China, using the US Cheney/Bush administration and World Trade Organization as their foils.
“ The Bush administration, under pressure to deal with a soaring trade deficit with China, asked the Chinese government Wednesday to outline what it’s doing to reduce the piracy of American movies, computer programs and other copyrighted material,” says the Associated Press.
“The formal request for details on China’s enforcement efforts was made through the Geneva-based World Trade Organization and could be a precursor to WTO-authorized economic sanctions if the United States uses the information in a trade case against China. Japan and Switzerland filed similar information requests.
AP has ” US Trade Representative Rob Portman saying, “The United States is deeply concerned by the violations of intellectual property rights in China” because “piracy and counterfeiting remain rampant in China despite years of engagement on this issue”.
“Today’s action speaks loudly to the will of the administration to press the Chinese government for key reforms that will help China meet its international obligations,” RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) boss Mitch ‘The Don’ Bainwol is quoted as saying. “We hope China will soon develop strategies to attack piracy more successfully.”
Recently, the MPAA’s (Motion Picture Association of America) Dan ‘Jedi’ Glickman expressed his personal displeasure at the lack of alacrity with which China is addressing movie studio demands.
“U.S. business groups have been lobbying the administration to bring a formal WTO complaint against China’s enforcement of intellectual property rights, a step that could lead to economic sanctions against China if the United States won its case,” says AP.
And who knows, the label and movie cartels might even go so far as to deprive Chinese listeners and audiences of ‘product’.
Meanwhile, in direct contrast to American assertions, China claims its efforts to toe the US line are going well.
“Good progress has been made in movie copyright protection since a joint anti-piracy enforcement mechanism between China and the United States was set in motion in July,” says official news agency Xinhua, going on, “The verdict was reached yesterday at a Sino-US joint anti-piracy conference in Beijing, the second of its kind since August 30.”
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See:-
Associated Press – U.S. asks China for details on anti-piracy efforts, October 26, 2005
personal displeasure – MPAA, China division, July 17, 2005
toe the US line – Hollywood, China, p2p meeting, October 26, 2005
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October 28th, 2005 at 10:13 am
The US should stop crying about China being lax on piracy. Guess who are funding these pirates? Where would Baidu’s MP3 search be if it wasn’t for the US venture capital money supporting its growth? If Bush wants to fight Al-Qaeda by shutting off their funds, the US should do the same with the US funded piracy operations in China. Where’s Mr. Sarbanes and Mr. Oxley now?
October 28th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
It is America that is lax on piracy.
A music publisher ilegally claimed to be the owners of over 500 songs owned by my family, during 6 years and the American federal judge found nothing wrong with that.
The publisher issued many licenses with our songs and millions of records were produced as a result. The judge said there was no proof of that even though on another case we proved that 16 recordings were peoduced with the phony licenses issued by the publisher that stole the songs.
The judicial system goes in one direction and government policy in another.
In the case of goverment the push arises out of the fact that the cartels have purchased the politicians. In the case of the courts, I dare not explain at present.
The details are in my web page.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com