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Nintendo Supports US's Anti-Piracy China Measure

Posted by Zonk on from the one-too-many-phoney-dses dept.

Earlier today we discussed the China/US Piracy clash, and it's worth noting that yesterday Nintendo came out in strong support of the US's position. Gamasutra reports that an estimated 7.7 million counterfeit gaming products have been seized in the last four years of piracy raids. "According to Nintendo, China has continued to be the leading production site and exporter for counterfeit Nintendo products, and has the largest domestic consumption, and in 2006 alone the company estimates that the overall industry lost $762 million due to piracy. Commented Nintendo in a statement: 'Despite the millions of counterfeit Nintendo products seized from retailers and manufacturing plants in China through the years, there has only been one criminal prosecution. Numerous factories, where tens of thousands of counterfeit Nintendo products were seized, escaped with only trivial fines or no penalty at all.'"

1 of 45 comments (clear)

  1. Re:China does need to do more by djupedal · · Score: 4, Interesting
    but the fact is, if China never gets its act together on IP, it'll never be attractive for more than grunt work R&D
    And if China only sold to China, there would still be a ton o' money to be made, so your particular diatribe not only years behind reality, it is DOA, sorry.

    Want facts? No problem...
    • Intel just broke ground on the newest fab center in seven years, worldwide. Location: China.
    • IBM just moved their world headquarters for one specific division...from: USA - to: China The largest domestic Chinese telecom saw stock prices rise 13% yesterday. 15 R&D centers inside China and another 10 outside...o u t s i d e - with more on the way.
    • The 'grunt' work is already being moved offshore, to Vietnam, as one example...soon to North Korea. Foreign companies that want to put up major factories must also build hefty R & D centers, just in case the factory folds. The R & D centers will stay around and work as a foundation to keep the domestic infrastructure intact for the long term. So, every time you hear about some American or European company opening another factory in China, remember that such news also means another research center that isn't being built in the US or EU, UK, etc.
    Only when China gets bitten in a fair play on problems with domestic IP will things MAYBE turn around. I suspect they will never return to days of yore, actually, and we can all look forward to new business models, new definitions of IP, etc. that simply don't exist now. Your comments represent the type of staid, off-the-shelf thinking that is not related to what is really going on, sorry. It will take some time before new thinking replaces old and by then, the Chinese will have become comfortable in their new role on the world stage.

    A slightly funny situation is currently taking place over the 2008 Olympics and the Chinese govt. finding themselves being tagged by fake products such as keyrings, stuffed toys of the 'official' mascots, etc. Only authorized retail outlets are allowed to pedal these products, but of course, you can buy fakes on any street corner...