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. "

Comments

dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Adult film producer]

but how much do legal copies of dvd's sell for? Or rather, how much does the riaa/mpaa want to charge chinese consumers for a DVD ? $20? Maybe it's time for the riaa/mpaa to lower prices and compete with the blackmarket.. 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.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Ours]

I don't know about China but in the countries I've been in Asia, legal DVDs and computer games come real cheap compared to Europe. It's 1/4 of the price from what we pay in Europe. But that's hardly competing with the black market which has even lower prices. Still, I'd buy more DVDs and games if they where priced like the legal stuff in south-east Asia. But with the salaries these people have, they'll never pay more then black-market prices. Besides, why would they give a damn about US/European copyright owners? It's not like we've shown much in the way of caring for the working conditions they have to suffer to sell the stuff they make for us at super cheap prices.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[drgonzo59]

I guess the fear might be that such cheap copies of hollywood crap will spill into the US and Western European markets and cut into the profits of RIAA/MPAA and friends. But then again in U.S. and Western Europe we have our broadband and Pirate Bay / BTJunkie / etc. so we can get our share of hollywood crap for $0.

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).

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Anonymous Coward]

I nominate this kind of comment for automatic internet argument loss. Especially when coming from an AC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_prot ests_of_1989

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Illserve]

It's not like we've shown much in the way of caring for the working conditions they have to suffer to sell the stuff they make for us at super cheap prices.

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

[badfish99]

If the Chinese can't afford to pay for Hollywood movies, then "Hollywood cracking down" would cost them money for enforcement, without bringing in any income from sales. So it will never happen.

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.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[statusbar]

After the fiasco of the U.S.'s Canadian softwood lumber tax where the WTO ruled against the U.S. something like 5 times, I learned that the U.S. only follows WTO rulings when it suits them...

--jeffk++

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[_xeno_]

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?

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 China.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Illserve]

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 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 differently and for very different reasons. These people work at these wages because it's better than not working at any wages and children in Nike factories would be pretty pissed if their factory was shut down so that *you* could sleep easier at night.

The US went through its own period of poor working conditions, these things will be worked out.

Also remember that the global economy is a delicate organism. Radical changes, such as curtailing US/Chinese trade would be a Bad Thing (of the Great Depression variety). It'd be bad for you, bad for them, pretty much bad for everybody.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Volante3192]

Not to mention just recently the WTO ruled in favor of Antigua over online gaming.

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?"

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Itchyeyes]

I would like to see any nation that has a perfectly clean trade record. Simple because the US has violated WTO rulings in other areas does not mean that China's flaunting of IP laws is now permissible. As the GP stated, this is a legitimate complaint filed through the appropriate channels. You may not agree with US trade policy, but you certainly can't paint them as in the wrong on this particular issue.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[RobertinXinyang]

I Xian I have found that they, generally, cost about $1-1.25 USD (7-9RMB). With this I have seen about a 40-50% failure rate in the DVDs. Keep in mind that th eentire economy is on a different scale. When you look at the economy in terms of work hours, they cost about the same as they do in the US. Imported, ligitimate, DVDs sold at US prices would just be too expensive.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[darthnoodles]

you certainly can't paint them as in the wrong on this particular issue.

Wrong? No.
Hyprocrites? Yes.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Itchyeyes]

And if this were a discussion of Canadian softwood lumber or online gambling in Antigua then that would be a legitimate point. However, in a discussion of enforcement of IP in China, the American hypocrisy in other areas of trade is a red herring. It bears no practical use in determining whether or not China should be allowed to flaunt IP laws.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[dave420]

It's not just the WTO. The US uses these organisations when it suits them, then ignores their verdicts when brought against the US. That's one of the major reasons the world has a less-than-great view of the US - most other nations try their best to adhere to judgements and arbitration that find against them, regardless of how it will affect them. The understanding is you take the good with the bad, otherwise you just piss people off. The US seems to not give a shit, then acts all surprised when other countries get pissed off with them. Selfish foreign policy. It sounds like a rabid leftist mantra, but it's fucking accurate.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

You mean this dispute in which the WTO ultimately ruled in favor of the US?

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

. The US uses these organisations when it suits them, then ignores their verdicts when brought against the US Is it too much to ask for examples (beyond the GP's, which was ultimately decided by the WTO in favor of the US).

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[Antique Geekmeister]

Look again: according to my mainland Chines immigrant acquaintances, as much as 90% of the "official" game and movie DVD sales in mainland China are in fact pirated on a corporate scale. With so little threat of prosecution, and no robust identification of whare the discs were purchased from, there's just no way to control this.

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

[operagost]

So two wrongs make a right?

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[shaitand]

'The justice department will uphold the law on my behalf even if I've already shown my own disregard for the law as applies to me.'

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.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[KDR_11k]

Of course China shouldn't be allowed to but would you listen if you were told by an organization to stop something when the one who complained about you never heeded the organization's orders, either? China wants to build an economy that competes with the US and they've seen that one successful strategy of the US is to ignore the WTO when it pleases them. China will imitate that because they want to play by the same rules as their competition and in this case the rule is "international bodies are a way to get your power enforced, not curtailed".

If the US wants this complaint to have weight behind it they need to threaten trade sanctions if China does not follow up.

Re:dvd's cost a quarter in shanghai

[RealGrouchy]

So two wrongs make a right?

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 the U.S. to account" tactic obviously doesn't work, so China is trying a different one. I hope it works.

- RG>

China might as well ignore WTO rulings

[Anonymous Coward]

just like the US does, if they don't like them:
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/02/10 35210

Interesting how they chose their battles.

[aadvancedGIR]

China and other countries produce and export lots of low quality counterfeit products, including drugs and mecanical parts that can endanger consumers health but the US Gov. is only mad about copies of overpriced products (usually made in China for dirt cheap BTW) to protect the profit of a few cartels.

Re:Interesting how they chose their battles.

[aadvancedGIR]

Although what you are talking about about is a real phenomena (and a good reason not to outsource because you can't compete on either cost or quality in that case), there are also lots of workshops that produce totally fake products, usualy using materials that can barely look like the real product but are really cheap.

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.

Hmph

[tbone1]

The US' argument might have carried more weight if it hadn't been authored by Joe Biden.

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?

What about piracy in the US?

[WaZiX]

They are already having one hell of a hard time fighting piracy in such a policed country as the US, how exactly do they expect China with its 1.3 billion citizens to tackle this problem?

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...

WTO should say

[jhines]

And you the US, are gonna do WHAT about the on-line gambling issue that didn't go your way?

Re:WTO should say

[erroneous]

Exactly.

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.

MOD Parent UP

[Don_dumb]

Exactly, this is another case of classic US unilateralism. The US government use the UN, WTO and other international groups to get their own way with the rest of the world but then ignore those same groups when the rest of the world has its own issues.

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.

Re:MOD Parent UP

[drgonzo59]

It's alright. US is already behind as far as technological progess goes. Our school systems are crap, our students math and science scores rank near the bottom of the civilized nation's scores. We have been in a stupid war for the last 5 years or so, we have overspent our money, our president is a moron and we are so scared of terrorists that we threw away democracy and freedom and put babies on the no-fly lists. Call me pessimistic and alarmist, but I see this country going downhill. It was a great country, it reached it's peak and now it is on a long an steady decline.

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 Injust Trade Barriers - Oh My!

[Oriental_Hero]

LOL, I love it when the US protests against illegal trade barriers. Surely the foreign steel tariffs and more recently the Brazilian Ethanol/Biofuel tariffs do just the same...!

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 completely unrelated but similar instances of injustice. We should stick to the topic in question which is trading rights between countries and the effect of piracy efforts.

Not disagreeing with the basic premise

[Sycraft-fu]

But the world court thing is somewhat sticky because it gets in to constitutional issues. 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. Well, among other things, it guarantees citizens certain rights that the government can't take away (not that it doesn't stop them from trying from time to time). However if you say the world court has jurisdiction over US citizens, over the supreme court, then you are subjecting them to a court that doesn't recognise those rights. Not that they might not have a similar set, but the Constitution is pretty clear on this point.

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.

Re:Not disagreeing with the basic premise

[Itchyeyes]

Oh please... one can make a myriad of logical arguments for disliking the US, however yours is not one of them. Any representative government that submits itself to something other than the will of the people who it represents is failing in its primary duty. When American law and international law conflict, the US government's duty is to its citizens, not to some international community. The same goes for any democratic government.

Re:Not disagreeing with the basic premise

[flosofl]

And, by extension, when state law and federal law conflict, the state's duty is to its citizens, not to some federal community.

And when local law and state law conflict, the local government's duty is to its citizens, not to some state community.

And -- last but not least -- when individual morals and local law conflict, the individual's duty is to itself, not to some local community.

You just gave a great example of reductio ad absurdum .

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.

Re:Not disagreeing with the basic premise

[JesseMcDonald]

And local municipalities are subordinate to states as spelled out in their constitutions. And so on.

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, the individual's duty is to itself, not to some local community" stands on its own as a parallel of your claim regarding democractic governments (in this case a government of one), and does not depend on the prior two statements. I am willing to admit that the relationship between local, state, and federal governments may be different than my post implied, but my conclusion still stands stands:

If . . . governments are required to oversee interactions between individuals, then a world government is necessary to oversee interactions between nations. . . . [T]he lack of necessity of a world government proves the lack of necessity for local/state/federal governments.

The US was a great nation

[Opportunist]

With bold people pushing the frontiers. When "don't ask what your country can do for you" actually meant something, when it wasn't a blurb spinned by politicians, but actually heeded by them and even the industry, too. Great men and women who wanted to push the boundaries and make the nation (or humanity as a whole) better and more advanced.

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.

Re:The US was a great nation

[pubjames]

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.

Speaking as a European, you may be right about fat and lazy, but the fear is just in the USA.

Re:Apparently RIAA lost hope in people of U.S.

[smack.addict]

No, it's not.

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.

The US can't give a foot here.

[Opportunist]

Looking at the import/export bill, if they gave any leeway to the counterfeiters would be a desaster. Let's look at the import/export bill.

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.

Re:The US can't give a foot here.

[drgonzo59]

Wasn't there a new item that US does not lead the world in innovation and tech progress anymore. I believe it....

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 it filed in 1971, so we'll just sue the whole world for it and get rich?" I don't really see this modus operandi as being conducive to innovation, it is all just a get rich quick business...

A sad commentary on our nation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sad that our biggest beef with China trade-wise is over the profits of the entertainment industry rather than the human rights and pollution issues of their industries that want to sell products here.

Re:So when will the US pay *us* back?

[SillyNickName4me]

As everyone can now see, signing the Berne Convention has brought nothing but trouble to the US. Before that the default was for works to be in the public domain and creators had to register for protection. And what really gets me is we did it at a time when creating an electronically searchable database of copyrighted works was becoming a real possibility. I have a great respect for the modern liberal ideals of Europe and would like to see the US incorporate many of them, but Berne is simply unforgivable.

The problem of the Berne convention is not automatic copyright. Automatic copyright protects small and individual producers and allows them to concentrate on creating content instead of being bogged down with formalities. It protects creators from their content being stolen (as in, a draft copy of a book being stolen for example) and published before they could register it and so on.

The real problem is that copyright lasts virtually forever, preventing works from entering the public domain.

Priorities

[DCheesi]

US response to China's widespread human rights violations, sweatshop labor conditions, and suppression of dissent: *chirp* *chirp*

US response to China's half-hearted enforcement of US Big Media copyrights: OMG! WTF?!! We must complain and protest most vigorously!!!111oneone!