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Chinese DVD Makers Sue Over Royalties
Viceice writes "Afterdawn.com and DigiTimes are among many other news outlets reporting that DVD player makers from China are suing the 3C DVD Patent Group over royalties on patents held by the consortium. The suit accuses 3C alliance for price-fixing, unlawful tying of essential and non-essential patents together, group boycott and conspiracy to monopolize. According to the Chinese companies, typically U.S. patent licensing fees for other products are between 3 and 5 percent of the item's wholesale price, compared to the 50 percent for DVD players."
It's obvious that the 3C Patent Group is guilty, but then... that's how things work in the western world, and such acts are protected by local governments.
I only see this as the chinese companies trying to defend their position, nothing more. They want to be competitive, even more than they already are.
What does it say about the times we are in that the greatest champions of intellectual property freedoms are the constituents of the biggest dictatorship of the world?
Just because the Chinese government is a murderous fascist 800-pound gorilla, and it is increasingly beginning to decide that Chinese industry shouldn't have to be burdened by the limitations of western patents. After all, since China is not going to become a research and development hub as long as they pursue the whole "stalinism lite" thing and all their best and brightest continue leaving for American universities, it isn't like China is benefiting from the patent regime at all. So why not just start ignoring it whenever it gets inconvenient?
We've already seen this with the Red Dragon chip; this DVD thing may be the next big crack in the wall. Once Chinese industry is unburdened by patents, the rest of the world is going to have some other way to compete than government-granted monopolies on ideas in order to keep up.
I can't wait for the $5 DVD players after the China DVD makers win their lawsuit! My $20 DVD player is too expensive!!!
of anything.
You have to understand:
The CCP isn't a champion of intellectual property freedom.
They are champions of their intellectual property freedom.
There's a big difference there.
Dictatorships are always champions of their own freedom to do what they want, often at the expense of other peoples' freedom to do what they want. The whole China-Versus-Patents thing is just another example of that.
The summary is a bit misleading- the 3C group charges $20 per DVD player, not 50% of the cost. Although $20 may end up being 50% of the cost of a DVD player, a $100 DVD player still only has to pay $20. Their argument of "but everyone else does it this way" sounds like whining that they can't make $5 DVD players.
Maybe part of the reason the 3C is charging a flat fee is to prevent Chinese companies from severely undercutting their own offerings. They do have the patents on some DVD stuff, and I'm sure it's more than just worthless software patents. When you get a patent, part of the rights that you get is to prevent other people form using them, or making them pay a price of your choosing to use it.
This is a great time for the chinease to make an issue out of this. When blu-ray and HD-DVD become available the consortiums will think twice before trying to rip them off again. I guess they are just ensuring that this doesnt happen to them again.
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up... reading.-Henny Youngman
Maybe, this lawsuit could also be an opportunity to challenge their forcing the use of CSS (and regions) (in violation of the DVD video standard, misleading-advertsing laws and anti-trust laws) on most films to further their monopoly.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
nope, they will not want to pay more. but if stuff can't be outsoured to a cheap county that will follow patent law, there are alot of people here (US) that would be thrilled by factory assembly jobs.
so if china gets cut off and dvd players can't be made inexpensively elsewhere, people will have a choice for dvd players: pay more or go without.
eric
A Chinese company pushing for consumer rights.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Didn't know that.
That's just ridiculous. Just another form of price fixing monopolies.
You cannot build a CD or DVD device without licensing technology from Japan. Or even a VCR, as Go Video found. American companies no longer own the key consumer electronics technologies.
Just look under your Micro$oft keyboard, and you will know why. Made in...
Surf the Internet via the robots.txt, it is a lot more fun.
Peace.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
the dvd-consortium made the standarts, convinced the studios, established a market just waiting for hundreds of million players for those companies to produce and sell. A market that wouldnt have existed without the standart.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
yeah, there chamoion freedoms for the consumer..sure.
What they are doing is trying to get into the game without playing by the rules.
Once they relly start to peak, you bet your ass they will want very tight IP laws.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Believe it or not, the world still existed before 1900. Ever hear of Francis Cabot Lowell? In the early 1800s Britain's industry had some of the best industrial technology in the world, and they viciously protected their trade secrets, trying to make sure that no one else could get hold of their stuff. Francis Cabot Lowell around 1810 wanted to start some modern textile mills in New England, so he went over to England, got a job in a textile mill, examined the machines until he understood them, reverse-engineered the schematics and then memorized them, and came back to New England knowing how to build them himself. This is how the powered loom came to North America, It was the first example of industrial espionage in history that I'm aware of.
If you look at the period during which the U.S. began its rise as an international economic power-- not the post-Reconstruction period during which it had already completed that rise, which is where Edison existed-- you see LOTS of examples of stuff like this, over multiple areas of intellectual property. Witness Charles Dickens' desperate attempts to get America's book publishers to actually respect his copyrights...
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
In the past, a lot of "no-name" DVD players were manufactured by chinese companies that just flat out ignored the patents held by the DVD consortium.
By going to court over the issue, these companies are tacitly accepting the western-style patent regime that the USA is trying to force on the rest of the world.
This new acceptance is probably part of the fallout of the Secretary of Commerce, Donald Evans's recent trip to Beijing. As was the recent arrest of bittorrent user in HK.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Hrm, at least they're smart enough to sue in the USA, where they have a chance of winning and actually getting the lawsuit enforced.
Now if foriegn courts would just be so nice about things such as spam and child pornography.
Anyone else ever feel like we're getting the raw deal, their complaints tend to get reasonably addressed, but ours tend to get thrown out the window , espcially in china.
What about the Red Dragon chip? As far as I can tell, it's vaporware. Last news I heard was from about June 2004.
Course, I could be wrong. I mean it could be running Duke Nukem as we speak.
Go China I say!!! They make great DVD players which arent burdened with intrusive region-coding crapware!
kin242.net
If the Chinese companies win, will we see the PlayStation 2 and Xbox prices drop to those of the GameCube?
It is now a crime to conspire to monopolize??? Isn't it the whole point of communist economic policy in the firstplace? A communist revolution is after all one big conspiracy to monopolize, with the belief that it creates a better world!
Pioneer's corporate headquarters is at 1-4-1 Meguro, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8654, Japan. Its president is Kaneo Ito. Main plants are in Tokyo and Saitama prefectures. Production is being moved to plants in Southern China.
Ok go China! but what I don't understand is why more manufactures don't make un-licensed DVD players? Just because something doesn't have the 'DVD' logo on the front doesn't mean people won't buy it, especially if their friends buy it and ok it and especially if it costs bloody 50% less than a normal player! Chinese manufacturers could wipe the market - at least in china, and the demand for these players everywhere else would be enormous - surely customs/governments could be COUGH persuaded into diverting attention eh? like they did with the DMCA. China makes just about everything so if the 3DICKS don't like it they can go to hell, I want my cheap DVD players!!
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If the DVD cartel doesn't work this out, we'll all get screwed when the Chinese Central Mafia Committee declares that good Communists use only the official Chinese (royalty-free) competitor to DVD. And decline to prosecute DVD pirates.
--
make install -not war
DVD player makers from China are suing the 3C DVD Patent Group over royalties on patents held by the consortium. The suit accuses 3C alliance for
- price-fixing,
- unlawful tying of essential and non-essential patents together,
- group boycott and conspiracy to monopolize.
Are these the patents they are refering to?
"If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated." - Voltaire
damn I finally got mod points, and then there's no '-1 idiot'
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Nor would you need to ammend the constitution to abolish copyrights.
Some have claimed that the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment ("nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation") prohibits abolishing or abridging copyrights in existing works or patents in existing inventions unless the federal government buys the copyrights or patents at market price and PDs them. James v. Campbell, 104 U.S. 356 (1881).
This should be required reading before posting on IP law and China: Ministry of Science and Technology: Laws and Regulations
In Emglish translation:
The Patent Law of the People's Republic of China
Trademark Law of the People's Republic of China
Coyright Law of the People's Republic of China
Technology Contract Law of the People's Republic of China
Product Quality Law of the People's Republic of China
Ok go China! but what I don't understand is why more manufactures don't make un-licensed DVD players?
The customs departments of North American and European companies would stop patent-infringing players at the border.
The article assumes that Chinese DVD makers are paying licensing fees on their current products. I've read that many don't pay or are way behind in their payments. That's part of the reason that their products are so cheap.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
So the second example is not really related with the common entity of China.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
This is like the mafia suing the MPAA/RIAA/any other business consortium. Theyre the only ones with the balls and the resources to take them on. This is going to be FUN to watch.
The first time that Chinese haven't just pirated what they couldn't afford. ;-)
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
http://www.dvd-recordable.org/Article1734.phtml
Because they are not paying fees, the DVD group is shutting them out of the US and Europe and lots of their factories are going away.
-- I doubt, therefore I might be.
It's a bit wierd, too. I grew up with the whole Chairman of the Board Mao/Better-dead-than-Red thing. But since about 1995, China's been making some really good calls here and there. Honestly, I think they're going to end up surpassing America in both technological advancement, and social stability.
Content control disturbs me enough to re-flash my DVD drives with hacked firmware to kill region encoding, even though all my DVDs are Region 1. Why should I be limited to a small number of region changes on equipment I've BOUGHT and that I OWN OUTRIGHT and even (in some places) PAY EXTRA MONEY FOR because of "piracy tax"? Anything at all that messes with the content cartels makes me extremely happy. I hope they fucking burn.
what do you mean no idiot ? It's a bit wierd, too. I grew up with the whole Chairman of the Board Mao/Better-dead-than-Red thing. But since about 1995, China's been making some really good calls here and there. Honestly, I think they're going to end up surpassing America in both technological advancement, and social stability.
I would like to point out that some portions of copy rights have at times been "diminished" or "taken away" by new law, and that existing copyright holders did not need to be compensated for that "taking". ... So congress has in many many cases removed various bits and peices of the bundle of rights granted to copyright holders, and has never paid a single cent to existing copyright holders for doing so.
When Congress has taken away rights under copyright law, it has tended to compensate copyright owners by granting them other rights in the same bill. For example, you mention 17 USC 117. The changes made to 17 USC 117 in October 1998, specifically intended to keep another MAI v. Peak from happening, were counterbalanced with the rest of the DMCA. Likewise, the "Fairness in Music Licensing Act" passed around the same time, which gave restaurants and bars the right to turn on the radio without making a separate payment to BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC, was counterbalanced with a copyright term extension.
In most ways, right down to average lifespan, China has already blown the doors off of India, a Democratic nation that began industrialization at the same time.
Google will turn up the relevant Quality of Life Indicator data.
Fight for something better: www.socialistalternative.org
China attacked Vietnam about 20 years ago.
Still his point still stands - you know that the US has been invoved in a average of one war a year since it's foundation, most of which the US started.
Incidently the US has higher incarceration rates & executes more people per capita than China.