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China Seizes 13 Million Pirated Discs
TechFreep writes "The Chinese government is waging a 100-day battle against software and media piracy, the largest such effort ever conducted. After launching the effort on July 15, Chinese police and copyright officials have raided 537,000 illegal publication markets and distributors in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Liaoning Province. Of these, government officials have closed down 8,907 shops and street vendors, 481 publishing companies and 942 illegal websites." This article in China Daily quotes vendors of legal media products gushing over their increased sales.
537,000 illegalmarkets and distributors? I know there are a lot of people in China, but damn, can that possibly be right? If they bust everyone, the US could lose its coveted "most behind bars" status.
only 90 bazillion more to go! That picture from TFA is wild, though (mountain of CDs being crushed by steamrollers). That looks like some kinda explosion at a CD store.
stuff |
Where else are we going to see blurbs like this on DVD covers?
full text:
The Chinese government is waging a 100-day battle against software and media piracy, the largest such effort ever conducted.
After launching the effort on July 15, Chinese police and copyright officials have raided 537,000 illegal publication markets and distributors in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Liaoning Province. Of these, government officials have closed down 8,907 shops and street vendors, 481 publishing companies and 942 illegal websites.
Two of the largest pirated media operations in Liaoning Province, one located near Shenyang's Sanhao Street, the other in the Science and Technology Park of Liaoning University, were among those targeted.
These two centres provided over 90 per cent of all pirated compact disks to the city residents, said Wang Hongyu, head of Shenyang Anti-Pirated Enforcement Team. But now you can hardly find any pirated products there.
The crack down was initiated by more than 10 ministries and national departments, including the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Security, the State Administration of Press and Publication, and the National Copyright Administration. Each of the 13 million illegal CDs and DVDs that were seized up to this point in the raids were destroyed on September 16th.
It is suicidal for America to not tie very strong IP enforcement to its trade agreements with countries like China. Most of what we produce domestically is IP from music to code to drug designs. We are at an inherent disadvantage then, if we allow them to dump tens of billions of dollars of cheap crap in our stores, but allow their locals to run wild with our IP.
I don't like it, but that's just the way it is.
If you want to reduce our dependency on IP and strong foreign IP laws, go start a manufacturing business that produces in America at rates that can replace China and Taiwan.
Until then, I am glad to see China stepping things up, as it means we aren't getting shafted so badly anymore.
100day vs 0day
Hmm, at least numbers are on their side.
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Oh, don't forget this article that states they were going to send out one million spam warnings to spammers. One million spammers? Here in the United States, it seems to be 9 or 10 parties that create 99% of the spam. Why is it so different in China? Is one in every thousand Chinese citizens a spammer?
Perhaps this is just another law that China will use to silence people (like I mentioned here)?
Speak out against the government and have your apartment ransacked for pirated DVDs. They find them everytime and you don't have to worry about a trial -- you were ready to distribute them! Makes the government look good and invites companies to come to China. Win-win situation for the government!
My work here is dung.
I hate it when the media misuse the word "pirate". You'd think Slashdot could at least get it right.
Illegal copies sold at retail are counterfit copies, not "pirated copies".
Piracy is when you copy content yourself for free. With piracy, no one profits off someone else's hard work.
Counterfitting is when someone runs illegal copies and then sells the copies for their own profit.
It's a subtle difference, but an important one.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
Pirating for money is a far different thing than copying for free. That includes Pirate Bay, as they seem to have ads on their site. I have a real problem with people copying music/games/etc and selling it. If they choose to put it up for free--I have a lot less of a problem with that.
I say if we're going to bring down communism we should do it via undermining their contries authority and showing them now the non-commies have it...
Have you ever considered the possibility that the huge multinational corporation that produce movies want to keep things the way they are? China's slave, er, child, er inexpensive labor force helps them to maintain their astronomical profits.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The difference is that those websites are illegally maintained as opposed to just illegally accessed. Jimbo sits comfortably in the U.S., and there's nothing China can do about it but block his site. These people are actually breaking the law, and that's a bit more serious.
I say if we're going to bring down communism we should do it via undermining their contries authority and showing them now the non-commies have it...
China is not a communist country. They are an authoritarian fascist regime.
The soviet union with Lenin was an example of something a bit more communist, and Cuba regime resembles communism even more.
All of them share some degree of authoritarism, but that is not a needed or unique characteristic of a communist country.
Aside from the clarification... why would you want to bring down communism in another country?
Do you think that the autodetermination principle is not a good thing to respect?
It's one thing to choose to trade with countries with which you share ideology, but trying to force other independent countries into doing things the way you do, looks pretty authoritarian itself. And it would be hilarious to do that, in the name of democracy.
Ebay, announces the cancelation of 537,000 auctions for "genuine" dvds by the seller for "item no longer available"
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Counterfitting is passing it off as genuine. If the customers knows it is copied and still buys it--that's just for-profit piracy.
Movie companies, software companies etc, are more interested in dollars than some cold-war era politics. So you can't sell to them legally now? So what! In a few years things will likely soften and you'll be able to sell movies etc to China. When that happens you don't want a strong culture of copying. Besides, by ganging up with the regime, you're more likely to get a softened response and get the markets going sooner rather than later.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
China's not communist by any reasonable definition of the word. Their welfare state makes America's look comprehensive - no state education, no state healthcare, no unemployment benefit. You're on your own, pal. Private enterprise is common and becoming more so, and people have the right to own property. It's not communist, it's just got a very authoritarian government that calls itself communist.
Looks to me like TechFreep doesn't deserve to be slashdotted.
The article they are referring to was last updated on 2006-02-06! Which also means TechFreep edited the story considerably to add mention of recent dates. They even used the same Febuary photo.
Therefore I would not be trusting any information from this source.
"Aside from the clarification... why would you want to bring down communism in another country? Do you think that the autodetermination principle is not a good thing to respect? It's one thing to choose to trade with countries with which you share ideology, but trying to force other independent countries into doing things the way you do, looks pretty authoritarian itself. And it would be hilarious to do that, in the name of democracy." You must be new here. Let me welcome you to the US.
China's not communist by any reasonable definition of the word. Their welfare state makes America's look comprehensive - no state education, no state healthcare, no unemployment benefit. You're on your own, pal. Private enterprise is common and becoming more so, and people have the right to own property. It's not communist, it's just got a very authoritarian government that calls itself communist.
Shh, I hope our government doesn't take any lessons from them. Though we'll just arrange our system where people still have freedom of speech, and can blog and complain on the internet with all the millions of other US residents. Heck, we can even still do our voting along our tradional lines since it's understood by those in power and it's hard for your average disgrunted citizen to actually change anything. They have to form a group or party and go through our organized political process. That weeds out all the lazy right there. Everyone who won't go through the "democratic" process can just be labeled an extremist and ignored by most of the citizenery.
An American manufacturer copied the design of a loom from an English company and started producing wool. Others stole the design and pretty soon the American wool industry was booming. Why? Was American wool that much better? Could we produce more wool?
No on both counts. We did it cheaper and had a domestic market that couldn't afford anything but US made wool. What was exported was STILL cheaper than English wool. British wool was driven into a niche of "high quality" while Americans got rich on low-cost goods.
Moral? High Quality is the last refuge of the losing side.
Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
Sweet! I guess this means that software will become much cheaper because the corporations won't be losing money in lost sales due to piracy!
Right?
Once in a while the police will raid the place to show that they're cracking down on the illegal software business. They will keep an eye on the place for a couple of weeks and after that just give up. After that, the vendors will just take up their usual spots again and it will be business as usual. It seems like this cycle just goes on every year with no real progress being made, and I have a feeling that it's the same in China.
All those stores would be open again in a month, selling all their stuff like nothing has happened. It's just a publicity stunt and nothing else.