New China anti-piracy move
p2p news / p2pnet: America is warning business partner Communist China it had better toe the line with US demands that it does something to stop the trade in counterfeit product and copyright infringements.
A “formal request” for details on the country’s enforcement efforts has already been made through the WTO (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,” says a recent report.
Now, “Under increased pressure from the World Trade Organization and ahead of a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush, China has launched a three-month campaign to fight piracy and pornography, the Ministry of Culture said Wednesday,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
A “circular” on the ministry site “demands that authorities in 15 Chinese cities and provinces work to bust International Property Rights violators and pornographers from Nov. 1 through Jan. 31 and report back to Beijing by the end of February,” says the story.
But even if the regional reports are “delivered on time” they’ll still be too late to “help China’s central government meet a Jan 23 deadline at the WTO to offer a formal detailed accounting of efforts in China’s legal system to fight IPR violations,” says the Hollywood Reporter, adding:
“The WTO deadline was set in a letter to Sun Zhenyu, China’s first ambassador to the WTO, by U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman last month in Geneva.”
Twenty-five mostly American investment funds which manage some 21 billion dollars in assets say they’ll monitor firms such as Yahoo, Cisco Systems and Microsoft that help Communist China to censor the Net or operate online surveillance systems.
“As investors and research analysts, we recognize that our investment decisions have an impact on human rights around the world,” they say.
China recently announced the formation of the P2P Application Promotion Alliance.
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win
- Mohandas Gandhi
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local political representatives. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance.
See:-
recent report – China is lax on piracy says US, October 27, 2005
Hollywood Reporter – China begins 90-day drive against piracy, November 10, 2005
monitor firms – Investment funds sign Net pledge, November 8, 2005
Yahoo – Yahoo promotes China venture, November 9, 2005
P2P – China goes p2p, November 2, 2005
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If you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.
Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.
November 10th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
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November 11th, 2005 at 4:03 pm
Lucy Montgomery has a report on “Online music markets in China” at Indicare [1] and I made a comment there suggesting a way to gradually introduced IP into markets that don’t traditionally support strong copyright:
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I would like to take this opportunity to introduce another feature of the Rights Office [2](RO) system. Maybe my article should have been subtitled ‘Competing with Free’ because all content in the RO system has the ability to compete with ‘free’, illegally copied, or unmarked content on an equal footing. RO identified content is able to do this because there is no ‘cost’ to using properly identified content and it is never illegal to hold identified content no matter how it was obtained. This situation means that the RO system could be introduced gradually into markets that don’t traditionally support strong copyright, such as China, with the advantage that identified works would gradually become more prevalent even if unremunerated trading continued to take place. A number of advantages follow from this business model:
1) Any works returning to countries with strong copyright would be identified and hence could enter their systems with the potential that the rights holder will be rewarded at some date and at least the author will be acknowledged.
2) As the transition country gradually recognises copyright, as its artists and other users recognise the benefits of rewarding creative effort, the system will already be in place to increasingly implement monetary contributions and trade.
3) At first, small traders who currently make a living by selling tape and disk copies could just continue with digital copies but encouraged to own the identity of their master copy in the RO system which would allow them to distribute legal copies even if not directly rewarding the artist. Slowly consumers can be encouraged to buy their own identified copies where the artist is rewarded. This could be a mechanism for these small traders to transition into the legal market.
4) As rewarding the author becomes accepted, stronger legal support can be applied to the use of works in the RO system.
5) “Greater transparency and accountability within China’s group collection agencies, as well as among internet service providers and search engines will also be crucial to realising the potential of China’s copyright industries. The availability of illegal online content cannot be controlled without such changes.” The use of distributed Rights Offices representing authors, distributors, and consumers alike could aid the transition to transparent regulation.
The overall advantage of RO is that copyright can be introduced gradually at a pace that suites the community while all the time introducing the system and the rules. DRM solutions tend to be all or nothing, all the technology and content is DRMed or else the content is illegal. Under Rights Office even a copy of an analogue tape traded on the streets could be legally part of the system.
Links:
[1] http://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=141
[2] http://www.indicare.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=133