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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. "
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.
just like the US does, if they don't like them:0 35210
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/02/1
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.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
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.