China Slams US Piracy Complaint

bingoathome writes with a link to a BBC article on China's criticism of the US over its complaint to the WTO. The Bush administration is breaking its long-standing policy of backroom conversations with Beijing to condemn the country's continued 'failure to address copyright piracy and counterfeiting.' "The US says that China's failure to enforce copyright laws is costing software, music and book publishers billions of dollars in lost sales ... The US has been threatening a WTO complaint against China since 2005. It said on Tuesday that the two cases had been submitted to the WTO. One case claims that Beijing's poor enforcement of copyright and trademark protections violates WTO rules. The other contends that illegal barriers to hamper sales of US films, music and books. "

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[pipatron]

When I was there last year they seemed to charge around $5 for a legal copy, in the most expensive stores. You could buy the cheap-ass titles that nobody wants, without a hard cover, for around 50 cents at wal-mart, but I don't know if they were more legal than those sold on the streets for a similar price.

What about chinas IP and Art?

[DuncanE]

I'm going to raise something which will probably be greeted with blank stares...

What about Chinas IP/Cultural penetration in the US? Where's the Chinese equivalent of Britney? What about the Chinese authors in the NY times best sellers list? They account for a large proportion of the world population.

Perhaps China feels that the Cartel media structures of the US are not fairly promoting foreign IP and art?

Re:Not disagreeing with the basic premise

[EzInKy]

The Constitution is the highest law in the US, above even federal. It can only be changed by a 67% majority vote in congress, and then a vote from 75% of the states.


Actually the States can amend the Constitution without Congressional interference by holding another Constitutional Convention.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[monsted]

The only cost the pirate needs to worry about is the cost of blank media (cents/copy) [...]

Well, they have them pressed in a proper factory using regular CD/DVD fabs. This makes it even cheaper than typical blank media.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[j-beda]

As I read it, the agreement does not in fact comply with the various decisions that have gone against the US, it is in fact more favorable to the US than implementing the changes that those decisions mandated. If the US just implemented the mandated changes to their behavior, no "agreement" would be necessary. The agreement is needed because the US does not want to do what they are supposed to do under the various trade agreements already in place so they need Canada to agree to a new arrangement outside of the process - Canada of course wants (some of) its 5 billion bucks back and to get their injured forestry sector back to good health so it has some incentive to sign onto a deal that is not as good as the one that they though they already had withing the WTO and NAFTA arrangements.

If the US respected the WTO arbitration process it would just comply with the decisions of that process rather than need to negotiate separate arrangements.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[LadyLucky]

Well, I found heaps in Beijing for about $5. These were real DVDs. You can tell the difference because they are in the massive bookshops, they have decent subtitles and use dual-layer DVDs.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Anonymous Coward]

I do know of the situation in Russia, because a couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a member of the Russian trade delegation at an IPR conference. In Russia, a legal DVD of a current Hollywood DVD release costs about one month's average wage. It's no wonder Piracy is rife.

I do know of the situation in Russia, because I live here. A legal DVD doesn't cost about one month's average wage.