China Slams US Piracy Complaint 346
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. "
dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why Microsoft wants Vista's enhanced DRM capabilities: to cooperate with video producers, and to protect its own software from cheap duplication.
Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:5, Interesting)
I would be very surprised if you managed to find a legal copy of a DVD in China, outside of Hong Kong and Macau. I don't know what the price would actually be in China, but 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.
That same person made the point that the world's biggest exporter of pirated DVDs, software, etc, (based on customes seizures) is the USA, but the US government doesn't seem to see that as such a big issue.
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If you don't want to pay for it, don't watch it.
"based on customes(SIC) seizures"
Of course, not all countries take equal measures to counteract piracy, so that doesn't really mean anything.
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Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oh please, that is a grossly unfair criticism. What exactly are we supposed to do? Declare war on China if they don't legislate improved working conditions?
The WTO exists precisely for the purpose of arbitrating disputes of this sort. The US is following protocol for a legitimate concern.
Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:5, Insightful)
--jeffk++
Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd love to see China come out and say, on the record, "The US has no history of agreeing to WTO decisions, why should we?"
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Look at it this way:
The U.S. continually violates WTO rules. If other countries are also violating WTO rules (even if they are totally stupid), the U.S. will say that they're waiting for the other country to comply.
When the other countries do comply, the U.S. *continues* to not comply. That's two wrongs right there: (1) U.S. benefitting from other countries' compliance, and (2) U.S. benefiting from U.S. noncompliance.
The "let's make sure we're obeying the rules before we hold th
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Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong? No.
Hyprocrites? Yes.
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Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not entirely true. The law does not apply the same way to a convicted and incarcerated prisoner.
'I don't know much about prior US dealings with the WTO, but I do believe laws should be upheld even on behalf of imperfect citizens.'
We aren't talking about someone breaking a code of laws. We are talking about an international organization that exists to resolve disputes between its members. When a member thinks another is acting unfairly they can raise a dispute and all parties have agreed to abide by the decisions of the organization. A member gets the right to raise complaints in exchange for their agreement to abide by decisions. If a member raises complaints but never abides by unfavorable decisions then they really have no right to be a member or to raise issues.
Take the other stance. You are Italy and the US raises an issue against you. Regardless of the merit of the issue you will lose. If the ruling is in your favor, the US will ignore it and possibly take justice in its own hands via sanctions or military action. If you ever have need to raise an issue against the US, the US will ignore any ruling against it. Why should the US be able to enjoy the benefits of favorable decisions if it ignores the consequences of unfavorable ones? Why should any of the other member nations recognize disputes from the US under those circumstances?
I wouldn't.
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I dunno, maybe something slightly less severe, like not making them our "preferred trading partner?" Something along the lines of refusing to trade with countries that don't have some minimum standard of working conditions?
And, yes, I know that means we'd have to pay more for consumer goods. It's still a much less costly option than trying to invade
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And, yes, I know that means we'd have to pay more for consumer goods. It's still a much less costly option than trying to invade China.
It is not our business to run around the world ensuring that all workers are treated according to OUR standards, RIGHT NOW. All countries do things diffe
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You mean, like not considering IP that much of an issue? I think making -copies- (ie: different from stealing) is a lot less amoral than taking advantage (and somewhat indirectly) help maintaining bad work conditions.
US's money muscle doesn't only reach pockets, it pushes laws abroad, gives uncaring politicians a great incentive to maintain an interest, and for that, keep the work profitable (ie: low paid). Of course it's mostly the local pol
Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:4, Insightful)
there is still money to be made, just don't expect chinese consumers to fork over 15% of their annual income for a lousy hollywood movie
The problem, according to ??AA is that hollywood movies (all lousy at best, as you mentioned) are not necessities, in other words if the Chinese cannot afford them so be it, they shouldn't watch them. And leave it up to us, the "cultured" and "soffisticated" to pay $20 for garbage like that.
I would actually support hollywood cracking down on those who watch their crap and don't pay. Not because I like hollywood but because I hope people will realize that crap like that is really not worth paying for and/or risking a lawsuit and instead invest their money (that $20) in something better. The same goes for Microsoft, let them go after each pirate and remotely disable all of those "suspicious" windows installs. I think the majority of people who pirate windows already realized that the quality of the product they would be getting if they would buy it "fair and square" is not worth the price, and maybe then they'll switch to a free operating system (say Ubuntu) or pay money for a quality product (OS X).
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They already have. I have a friend who goes to China about twice a year. He comes back with nicely produced pirated copies of movies -- these have high-quality reproductions of original cover ar
Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:4, Insightful)
What Hollywood want, of course, is for governments to enforce copyrights at the taxpayers expense. That doesn't cost them anything, except a little in bribes to make it happen.
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So, i said "well, if they're no
Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai (Score:5, Funny)
executives for the MPAA deserve a 7 figure income they work REALLY HARD.
Actors also deserve their 7 and 8 figure incomes, do you realize how incredibly HARD their work is?
Cripes working in a mine or foundry is pampered panzy work compared to what an actor has to deal with daily.
you people make me sick!
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It improves their economy, especially when they export the pirated items.
It typically brings a net influx of money, without an outflux. So, they care about it allright...
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The grantparent is off-topic, just like your reply is. Wh?
The fact that the USA locks up people without due process and such does in no way change what the Chinese did and do. Its the "but but.. they are much worse!!" type of argument.
Following the same line of thought, your comment about what the Chinese did is of no relevance for determini
China might as well ignore WTO rulings (Score:5, Insightful)
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/02/1
MOD Parent UP (Score:5, Insightful)
I always remember when some US official was asked why the US didn't recognise the International court of Justice, he replied "because this would allow other nations to bring trials against OUR leaders". The US just doesn't get the idea of "international cooperation", you can't just use collaboration to get your own way without compromise. Perhaps it would help if the US realised that it isn't always right.
Not disagreeing with the basic premise (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the real issue here, but it highlights a problem with things like a world court. It is hard to have something like a world government when the world can't agree on what kind of laws it should have. I'm going to guess China has a real different idea of what speech should be criminal than the US does. Thus it is kinda hard to have a single judicial system that both would be under.
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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.
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There are a few problems with this reasoning.
First of all, if the USA deals with USA citizens commiting war crimes or the other things the ICC deals with, then the ICC never comes into play. It only becomes a problem when the USA refuses to deal
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because I'm sure the Jews in Europe, Chinese or Koreans in East asia, or the ethnic Albanians in Serbia would never call for some form of court to hold people to crimes. no, it was the US because the US had so much to gain in any of those circumstances.....
The USA and the USSR setup the Neurenburg trials, (imho rightfully) forcing those who were in charge of the Nazi regime to submit to it, eventho those people often acted in line with the laws and constituti
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Re:Not disagreeing with the basic premise (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not disagreeing with the basic premise (Score:4, Insightful)
Specifically, your chain of logic fails on its first link: "And, by extension, when state law and federal law conflict, the state's duty is to its citizens, not to some federal community"
There is no "federal community". There is a federal government. And in some matters the state is subordinate to the federal government as spelled out in the US Constitution. And local municipalities are subordinate to states as spelled out in their constitutions. And so on. So your argument is not well thought out.
Additionally, the relationship between state and federal is *not* the same as US and the international community. In the US the relationship between states and the federal govnerment are determined by the US Constitution (well, the interpretation of the Constitution by the Judicial Branch). Our relationship with other countries and the international community as whole are bound by Alliances, Treaties, and Agreements. However, such relationships are superseded by the US Constitution. If a treaty violates or nullifies a portion of the Constitution, that treaty is void in the US.
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And there your chain of logic fails. Local and state governments may indeed have placed themselves in a position of voluntary subservience to the federal government through their constitutions (essentially making them subsidiaries of the federal government), but no such relationship exists between individuals and any level of government. My statement that "when individual morals and local law conflict, t
Re:MOD Parent UP (Score:5, Insightful)
I think US will be in the position to bully others only for so long. Pretty soon we might have to be the ones taking orders...
The US was a great nation (Score:5, Insightful)
Today, the US is what the rest of the "civilized" world is: Fat and afraid. Fat and lazy, unable and unwilling to lift a finger and not caring about tomorrow, not caring what happens to the world around them as long as they can get rich without having to do anything for it. Inventive? At best in the "how to get rich by doing nothing" department.
And afraid that this might change.
Btw, don't feel left out if you're not from the US. That's pretty much true for most of Europe, too. When I look around myself, all I see is fat, lazy and very frightened people.
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Even though I've never even seen a terrorist, nor that there was anything resembling at least a remote hint that somewhere close to here could have been some kind of peripheral indication of a possible threat in that area.
But "feeeear the terrorists" and everyone goes bonkers. Well, it might help that we do have a few immigrants from the near east and Turkey, and
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Interesting how they chose their battles. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Interesting how they chose their battles. (Score:4, Insightful)
If your 0.49$ screwdriver bends, it is not a disaster, if those brakes you got for a tenth of normal price with no invoice do not work after 50 miles, it can be.
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Just follow the $$$.
Ignore the counterfeits for a moment. Every year for the last 22 years, the trade deficit with china has gone up. January alone was $25.6 BILLION http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700 . html#2006 [census.gov], up from $21.4 billion the previous January. With those numbers, WalUSMart is looking at a $300 billion trade deficit this year, just with China.
This could be a way for BushCheneyHalliburton to lay the groundwork for further import duties. Even a 10% across-the-board surtax would
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It's likely they're upset about all of them, but this particular form of piracy has the most egregious profit ratio. There is practically zero cost in creating these counterfeits while the US industry is effectively footing the entire bill for making the product.
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Odd... (Score:3, Interesting)
I imagine they'll be open again soon, but it shows that China cares to some extent.
Hmph (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, though, is this a surprise to anyone? If China will run over defenseless people with an armored personnel carrier, who would expect them to honor the property rights of people who are not from The Celestial Kingdom?
And if the US' only economic advantage over China is in entertainment, is it surprising that they'd go after this?
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What about piracy in the US? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, seeing the poverty and corruption problems in China, I sure hope that they use their money to make life better for their own citizen, then maybe they can start pumping money into an impossible to achieve goal...
there's a difference (Score:2)
I think its all kind of ironic given how there was a lot of opposition to China joining the WTO by protectionist in the US. It may end up that the WTO is our tool to open CHina to all our awesome movies and expensive copies of Vista. And I can't think of a better thing for Linux then if China stopped pirating Windows. So go kick som
WTO should say (Score:5, Insightful)
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The USA's record of obeying WTO rulings that have gone against it is absolutely abysmal.
The fact that they are running to a body that they themselves have made toothless shows that their influence over China has waned to virtually nil.
They've been the only global superpower for close to two decades now, but China and India are very rapidly joining that group and the US is going to have to get used to much, much less going their way.
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We'll bitch and kvetch and stall. And eventually we'll give up if they're at all serious about it.
the Injust Trade Barriers - Oh My! (Score:2, Insightful)
And someone else posted about China running over it's own ppl in APCs. Need I mention WACO or Rodney King or how about the recent Blue on Blue incident where the US Air Force with 2 A10s blows the crap out of a British Convoy that had the correct orange markers denoting friendlies?
All this proves though is that we can both relate co
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These issues are already WTO complaints. People already have complaints against us, we already have complaints against others. We're just finally making a complaint against China because years of asking them nicely haven't worked.
What about chinas IP and Art? (Score:3, Informative)
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?
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It's not America's job to produce Chinese art. Nor does it make any sense.
America should produce the art it wants to produce and China should either pay for it or not. But if not, the alternative is not to steal.
Blank stares indeed (Score:2)
Alternatively (Score:2)
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Piracy is such a way of life in some Asian . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Piracy is such a way of life in some Asian . . (Score:2)
They even have many DVDs you cannot even buy in the respective country due to not being released or even banned, films banned or censored...
Since censorship and withholding information are bad making these DVDs available has to be a good thing.
Re:Piracy is such a way of life in some Asian . . (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me tell you what is playing in Beijing cinemas right now: Flyboys, Sixteen Blocks, A Night at the Museum, Eragon, and probably a Hong Kong flick or two.
Not to pass judgment on any of these movies in particular. I enjoyed a couple of them, myself. But do you see the pattern? These are the most popcorn, inconsequential, and super-commercial of Hollywood's output. There isn't a challenging, thought-provoking moment among them. It was a national event when we got Casino Royale, "uncut!" (Those might have been projection glitches, but I have my doubts.)
I mention this because movies are only approved for legal DVD sale if they can pass the censorship to make it into theaters in the first place. The studios are full of shit when they claim that they're losing money, because there are no legal DVDs worth buying in the first place. The legal movies are pretty cheap, they have decent Chinese subtitles, and they're certainly easier to get than the pirated stock. People aren't buying for the same reason ticket revenues are down in the States: the movies suck.
Do you want to see the award-winning art movie that everybody on the internet is talking about? If you're in China, you have to buy it off the street or in a hidden back room. If a Chinese person wants to see a piece of provocative film art about their own country, they have to buy a pirated copy. Even the better popcorn fare is banned: we didn't get Dead Man's Chest because the yarr matey pirates are a bad moral example to the tender, innocent Chinese public.
I work in the Chinese film industry, making domestic commercial movies. We probably lose money to movie piracy (although it was virtually impossible to find an illicit copy of Curse of the Golden Flower- which shattered Chinese BO records). But part of the job description at the office is to stay on top of international trends. There are only two ways to do that: piracy in the office, or massive travel budgets to send the whole office to Hong Kong every couple of weeks- which we can't do either, because the Chinese citizens in the office aren't free to travel there unrestricted.
I know it's too much to ask for principled international leadership from my mother country, but if the United States government would pull their heads out of the MPAA's ass for one minute, I might hope that they would see that piracy isn't what's killing Hollywood's profits in China- the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television is. And they're keeping the domestic industry at a third-world level while they're at it.
How about some WTO threats about that?
(Also, while I'm dreaming, if they could apply some pressure to make the Chinese fish less lead than fish and the air more air than choking soot, that would be fantastic.
Why do I live here, again?)
World War III (Score:2, Funny)
The US can't give a foot here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Agriculture? Well, the US has a lot of agriculture, no doubt. Still, it is highly dependent on imports and the exports don't mean a lot (especially with lots of them going to countries that won't ever pay).
Industry? Well, considering that it's way cheaper to produce in the far east, and with Japan and the other Tigers pretty much owning the high tech market (let's shroud the car industry in silence, to protect the guilty), it's not really a big source of foreign money.
Resources? Ever looked at that oil bill alone?
So what's left for exports from the US? Simple: Services and "virtual goods" (IP, content, information, entertainment).
Now, exporting services has a simple problem: You can't ship a haircut around the world. People have to come to your country with their money and spend it there. And if I look at the immigration requirements (even if I promise that I really, really wanna leave again, I wouldn't want to stay there longer than I have to, honestly, I have my ticket here...), I can understand that fewer and fewer people actually want to spend a vacation in a country where the gamble (whether you actually see more of it than a prison cell 'cause you remind someone of someone else) already starts at the airport.
So what's left is virtual property. Content and so on. That's still where the US shines. Movies and music is still a strong export article of the US. Computer programs (Windoze, anyone?), intellectual property and patents held by US corporations...
Imagine what the foreign trade balance would look like if the US backed off here.
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What it actually is about is hampering competition. Company A claims some trivial patent so company B cannot use some trivial foundation to base its research upon without paying company A more money than it has for the actualy R&D.
That's not innovation, that's quite the opposite thereof. And countries without a braindead version of IP laws will quickly take over and overtake the US. Because every researcher worth his or her salt will flee the US towards countri
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IP laws are so ridiculous here that they end up slowing down innovation rather than encouraging it. When you have patent hogs that all they do is accumulate overly generalized, broad patents, then sit and wait until someone uses them, then wait some more until 5 or 10 years pass and only then sue! "Oh, gee, we just noticed that, everyone is using a mouse pointing device and we had a patent for i
A sad commentary on our nation... (Score:3, Insightful)
Another chapter from (Score:2)
"Slam" ? I doubt it. (Score:2)
Priorities (Score:5, Insightful)
US response to China's half-hearted enforcement of US Big Media copyrights: OMG! WTF?!! We must complain and protest most vigorously!!!111oneone!
The US actually filed two complaints (Score:3, Funny)
One thing that was glossed over quite a bit in the article from the Beeb is that the US is actually launching two WTO complaints about China. The CBC article [www.cbc.ca] says
It figures -- first they complain that the Chinese aren't selling enough US movies, music, and books. Then when they find a way to start selling them by the truckload, the US complains about that too. =)
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Bad China.
Tsk Tsk Tsk.
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Price is not a product of the cost of production. It is a function of the value people see in it. If they don't want to pay the cost of the IP, they don't get it.
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For the clueless amongst us (myself included) can you explain what you're talking about?
I can partially fill in : (Score:2)
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"The United States refused initially to become a party to the Convention, since it would have required major changes in its copyright law (particularly with regard to moral rights, removal of general requirement for registration of copyright works as well as elimination of mandatory copyright notice). However, on March 1, 1989, the US "Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988" came into force and the United States became a party to the Berne Convention."
In
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"The United States refused initially to become a party to the Convention, since it would have required major changes in its copyright law (particularly with regard to moral rights, removal of general requirement for registration of copyright works as well as elimination of mandatory copyright notice). However, on March 1, 1989, the US "Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988" came into force and the United States became a party to the Berne Convention."
As everyone can now see, signing the Berne Conventi
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T
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Copyright has been 'automatic' for a long time in for example Europe, but not so in the USA, hence, for a long time to get your copyright recognized in the USA, you had to register it in the USA, else no copyright protection for you.
The other way around, US produced material has had copyright protection in Europe for a long time.
As a result, there was no problem for those in the USA 'pirating' productions from outsid
Different views (Score:2)
Copyright in the US has (had) a different purpose than that in Europe. The stated purpose is to "advance the arts and sciences" by granting a limited monopoly on the work. Even the Founders realized that ideas should be free, and that public domain is the default. You are given an exemption to that only to give you incentive to create more works.
Copyright in other places has a "you wrote it, you own it" mentality, which was di
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[sarcasm]That's one mighty convincing arguement you have there.[/sarcasm] Seriously, where are your supporting facts or sources to back-up your claims? The burden of proof rests on you.
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If you would have said copying instead of piracy, your statement would have been a lot more to the point and actually somewhat insightfull.
Of course, it is exactly how the USA got to where it is now as well.
Maybe this is an entirely new idea for you, but virtually all progress of