U.S. Puts 12 Nations On Watch For Piracy

ColinPL writes with a link to an AP article about a public scolding the US has given China, Russia, and several other nations. Failure to 'sufficiently protect' American copyrights is the cause of the Bush administration's ire, and has resulted in these countries showing up on a 'priority watch list' that could eventually lead to economic sanctions. "In addition to Russia and China, the 10 countries placed on the priority watch list were Argentina, Chile, Egypt, India, Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela. In elevating Thailand to the priority watch list, the administration said it was concerned by a range of issues including a 'deteriorating protection for patents and copyrights.' Thailand is currently in a dispute with international drug companies including Abbott Laboratories of the United States over the cost of drugs to fight AIDS and other diseases. The Thai government in January issued compulsory licenses allowing the use of much cheaper generic versions of two leading drugs in Thailand."

Comments

That told them!

[Threni]

If only China and Russia were big enough to not give a shit about US policy...

Re:That told them!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just surprised Canada and the UK aren't on the list, given all the piracy that goes on there. It's almost like this list has nothing to do with piracy.

Re:That told them!

[Anonymous Coward]

If only China and Russia were big enough to not give a shit about US policy...

The real joke is putting Israel on the list. Even if the US were to fine them they'd just get more US taxpayer money sent in the next lot of "foreign aid".

Re:That told them!

[Fuzzums]

That's called free enterprise.
Everyboy knows that! Duh! C'mon. ;)

Re:That told them!

[ATestR]

Except that the economy of China gets a big influx of money by selling to USA. Sure they can stop selling all their cheap goods over here, but if they do, what are they going to do with them?

Re:That told them!

[elrous0]

Yeah, you'd almost think that Thailand's addition just had something to do with they way they've bypassed the major pharmaceutical companies. But that would mean that our political leaders were just serving the ends of the pharmaceutical companies, not the American people or the law. And surely that can't be the case, not with our noble leaders and their "family values," "character," and such.

Re:That told them!

[steelfood]

As a sibling post has said, the relationship cuts both ways. Eliminate the cheap goods from China, and the US economey pretty much collapses. Especially if China suddenly kicks all the US companies out. The US companies would never be able to compete internationally without their manufacturing in China.

At the same time, China has numerous other buyers. Europe, Australia, other countries in Asia, including S. Korea and Japan. Japan and Korea still make their own electronics, but a lot of their other goods are manufactured in China. I believe even their car companies have plants there...

Re:That told them!

[kripkenstein]

As someone that lives in Israel, let me say, I am not surprised at all that it's on the list. What is ironic though is that there are so many IT companies here. This seems to show that you don't need strong IP laws to maintain a strong IT industry. Although, granted, most sales of Israeli IT companies are overseas; I don't know what proportion go to strong-IP-law countries, though.

Re:That told them!

[Cathoderoytube]

I think the reason Canada and the UK aren't on the list is because we're close neighbors with the US. In Canada's case we actually touch them. I'm not a political type person but I have an idea it would be bad for relations if the US went out and said 'Canada! you're on our list!' then we'd say 'Which list is that? The one for the terrorists, the beef, the lumber, the drugs or the flying squirrels?' then the US would say 'This is a new list! For not protecting our copyrights!' then we'd say 'Copyrights.. That's a new one is it?' then the US would say 'YES! We just made it! And you're on it! Right there below Venezuela!' then we'd say 'Wait what? We're still talking about copyrights here right? This list looks an awful lot like it has something to do with soccer. I think your list is wrong, we're more of a hockey country' then the US would say 'That's not true, your woman's team is quite good'. Then we'd say 'Well I suppose, but the fact of the matter remains we're really not known for our soccer' then the US would say 'You do have a valid point, we'll take you off the list.. '

So, uhh there you go.

Re:That told them!

[Soch]

I've lived in Canada, and I live currently in Israel. While I don't know about the UK, or the other countries on the list, I can most certainly tell you that Canadians don't pirate anywhere near as much as Israelis. A lot of that has to do with enfocement, too.

Just as an example, you can walk into any major bus station in Israel and find a store that sells exclusively copied CDs and DVDs. It will take the police months to close them down, and take their inventory away, but in that time they've made so much money they can afford to lose their inventory, and they just re-open after a waiting periode.

It is worse in Egypt (where I've visited) as the police there don't even make the token attempt at closing them.

I'm told by friends that it is SIGNIFICANTLY worse in places like China or Thailand. The proof one friend offered was a box of hundreds of CDs and Data DVDs that he bought for less than $10, not knowing what specifically was on the disks. There was a lot of usless crap on them, but a lot of cool stuff too. All in English, all obviously pirated.

Anyway, I'm going to assume that the UK is closer to Canada than the middle-or-far East in terms of it's level of piracy.

Re:That told them!

[geekoid]

You owe a man a thousand dollars, he owns you. You owe a man a million dollars, you own him.

adjust for inflation.

Re:That told them!

[Anonymous Coward]

Complete and utter nonsense. The amount of software piracy here in Israel is comparable to that in, e.g., the UK, France or Ireland.

The reason that Israel is on the list is completely different: Teva, which -- allegedly -- in its research, does not respect American pharmaceutical patents, and is one of the world's largest generic drugs companies. American pharma companies wage a battle against Teva for many years now. Teva's success is causing American companies losses in many billions (way beyond what Teva earns, because generic drugs sell for much less than the amount for which the non-generic drugs would have sold; the loss is on two levels, (a) lost sales, and (b) being forced to reduce prices).

Can't get to the article....

[gardyloo]

... anyone have a .torrent of it?

Let's be honest

[halivar]

This isn't just the Bush administration. If you vote for either of the Big Two, the person you voted for has been bought and paid for by the MAFIAA, and they are in full support of sending the copyright Gestapo after law-breakers worldwide.

Re:Let's be honest

[morgan_greywolf]

This isn't just the Bush administration. If you vote for either of the Big Two, the person you voted for has been bought and paid for by the MAFIAA, and they are in full support of sending the copyright Gestapo after law-breakers worldwide.

Except that they can't do much. Sure, the U.S. government can impose economic sanctions on non-compliant countries, but that only takes you so far. The U.S. Constitution requires that the federal government respect the sovereignty of foreign nations. U.S. courts won't typically touch a copyright infringement case if the infringement occurs overseas.

Re:Let's be honest

[Silver Sloth]

Sure they can... the US can bomb the crap outta them, like they do anyone else who raises their ire. This is known as gunboat diplomacy. It's a fine method of practicing international affairs except that, as the NYT reports this morning (sorry, lost the link), everywhere that the US is at war has led to an increase in terrorist attacks.

Bombing the crap out of people always ends up with them doing the best they can to bomb the crap out of you and it's noticeable that all the worldwide military might of the US still hasn't defeated terrorism.

Re:Let's be honest

[jimicus]

The U.S. Constitution requires that the federal government respect the sovereignty of foreign nations.

That's odd, because I could have sworn Iraq was a foreign nation with its own sovreign government until a few years ago.

Re:Let's be honest

[owlnation]

Except that they can't do much. Sure, the U.S. government can impose economic sanctions on non-compliant countries, but that only takes you so far.

True, and certainly in China's case - who will this hurt exactly? What percentage of US goods are in fact manufactured in China? Quite a large one I'll bet, certainly a significant one. Similarly, Turkey doesn't really need the US, but the US really does need Turkey as a base.

The fact is, speaking as a European, nobody outside the US gives a damn about US laws. In fact, we find attempts like this to assert themselves legally, to be rather lame and sad. It's just hot air and rhetoric for the voters back home I guess

Anyway, in the highly improbable event that any of these countries paid any attention the the US on piracy and actually stopped it, there's still be many other countries to which pirates could easily and successfully move to. There's also plenty of piracy from within US borders too.

The only way to beat piracy is to include fair use in copyright - assuming copyright needs to exist at all.

The *IAA needs to develop new business models or simply die - those are the only two choices available.

Re:Let's be honest

[thrillseeker]

as the NYT reports this morning (sorry, lost the link), everywhere that the US is at war has led to an increase in terrorist attacks.

no increase observed in the part the US cares about - the US.

Re:Let's be honest

[Entropius]

But there has been a massive *decrease* in the amount of resources the US has to take care of itself. There is infrastructure to be built, research to be done, debt to be paid down, an education system to be fixed, and on and on ... and all of these things are being neglected because of the sheer cost of these wars.

If bin Laden's goal is to, by terrorist attacks, cause material damage to the USA, he doesn't have to attack us. The USA has an autoimmune disorder of the first degree -- we're doing more damage to ourselves than bin Laden could ever dream of doing.

USA

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear United STATES of AMERICA.

You have your own part of the world. Please stay within it's boundaries and spend the saved time READING Wikipedia's article on law. You DO NOT and SHALL NOT ever control other nations laws. You cannot even abide by the very laws you were founded on these days, so why do you expect others to do the same?

Lots of love
Rest of the world.

The third world

[n3tcat]

I remember on my camp in Kuwait, the TCNs (third-world country nationals) would come on to clean, and would also stop by our living quarters with a truck load of burned dvds and vcds for a few bucks a pop. And this was very often. I know it was even worse up in Iraq, with people ripping and burning movies to sell on the markets all the time.

So these other countries must be doing this in huge quantities to be on this list. It's rather impressive really.

Re:The third world

[Heir Of The Mess]

I think you will find that there are factories in China making pirate DVDs that get shipped in bulk to just about every other country in the world. There are factories in Hong Kong that start printing the retail DVDs to stock up for the retail release, of course this printing is done while the movie is still in theatres, but often theses Hong Kong factories are also the source of the early DVD rips where rogue employees get a copy out of the factory somehow.

Counterfeiting is also big in China. There they even managed to set up a whole fake NEC organisation that was buying from the same suppliers that the real NEC did, see http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/27/business/ne c.php. They even print foreign food labels and put in on local produce. It's amazing stuff. There was even a case where they set up a car factory right next to a GM factory and were churning out the same car. Check this out http://www.automotoportal.com/article/chinese-rip- offs-of-western-automakers Makes a truck of burnt DVDs look like childs play.

What? No Canada?

[BladedThoth]

After the MPAA threw it's hissy-fit tantrum a while back about how Canada is the #1 place for movie piracy because it's where screen records come from, that they're thinking of delaying out movie release for weeks, yada yada yada, Canada doesn't make it anywhere on the list? Heh. Maybe the federal government isn't quite as stupid about what the *AAs are doing as they typically act like.

I see Canada isn't on there...

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Could that have anything to do with the fact that we just caved to US lobbyist pressure to buy some goodwill?

Piracy?

[treehouse]

Even /. has bought into calling copyright infringement "piracy". If you don't think it's the moral equivalent of murder on the high seas, then don't use the RIAA term "piracy". You just play into their hands.

Blatant Piracy should be stopped

[prakslash]

I, for one, welcome this.

These countries can do everything cheaper as seen with off-shored outsourcing and all.
The only edge the US has is innovation.

If these countries can just copy everything and do it dirt cheap, it will harm entities in the US who spend money on innovation - be it pharmaceuticals, music or software.

I think a bit of personal not-for-profit p2p downloading and an exception for life-saving drugs in OK. But, the balatant disregard for copyrights and patents with businesses in these countries openly copying and selling pharmaceuticals, software and music should be stopped.

Re:Blatant Piracy should be stopped

[tomstdenis]

You do realize that in most [not all] of these countries the people make in a year what most of us make in a month [or two]? right? Buying a 25$ movie may be nothing to people in the states or Canada, but is a big deal for many else.

Unless the mafiaa is willing to sell movies and CDs for dirt cheap they should expect piracy. let's see, I make about 70K and am willing to spend 25$ on a movie [if it's really good, otherwise I hover around $10]. These people make $7-10K so how about charge them $3 for the same movie. No? Ok, expect piracy.

And frankly if you stake your financial security on nations where the average income is $200 a month, chances are you should rethink your business plan.

Tom

Re:Blatant Piracy should be stopped

[A beautiful mind]

I think a bit of personal not-for-profit p2p downloading and an exception for life-saving drugs in OK. But, the balatant disregard for copyrights and patents with businesses in these countries openly copying and selling pharmaceuticals, software and music should be stopped.

So you're saying that just because the USA can't come up with a working economy, it resorts to hijacking a mechanism from the 18th century to try to control what every rational human being would classify as ideas that belong to everyone. Like the RIAA, the USA Govt. should learn the lesson too: come up with a working business model/economy or roll over.

Thailand?

[Don_dumb]

Copying drugs to fight AIDS and other diseases.

Those bastards!

Bush Logic

[SlantyBard]

Ok, they want to put Thailand on this list partly because Thailand has told them we are only going to pay a certain amount for anti-viral HIV medication instead of the hugely inflated US prices. Seems to me that saves US dollars in the end because it is US men (and other westerners too) going over for underage sex with potentially HIV infected girls which if treated appropriately would keep US healthcare costs down by decreasing transmission to US citizens.

Yep, sanctions more than likely will not work

[zappepcs]

when you are going to sanction the whole world (more or less).

What is interesting to me is the fact that the whole world (more or less) thinks your products are so pricey that copyright infringement is a better option.

And this little DRM thingy doesn't seem to be working out too well at the moment. Despite the **AAs opinion that DRM is the only way to protect their business product (which is distribution) the entire world (more or less) is telling them that their product is too expensive.

I'd be willing to be that counts as the world talking with one voice? s

I attest my country

[junglee_iitk]

As an Indian I can attest that there is nothing going on in India to protect "Intellectual property". I am neglecting the facts that KPO is a branded commodity for US, and the Bollywood industry has been doing its own part of playing RIAA in India.
1) India is big, poor, and in short, 3rd world country. It has problems involving supply of water (clean or not), clean air etc. It surprises many people in India when they learn that other countries don't have regular power failures. I don't think there is absolutely anything anyone can do to stop piracy. If they could, they would stop theft of electricity first. And I am not even sure "Intellectual property" is widely accepted as property.
2) Bollywood et. al. will never add the DRM. Dirt cheap electronics from China and Taiwan are driving the market, and anyone having a TV is buying a DVD player. And unlike most other countries, movies in Bollywood are made for the lowest section of society. No one can take the risk of screwing this market. Just some days ago I bought a DVD and was able to just copy-paste-play it. Region lock is not known to most people.

Those are what I consider the good parts. The bad part is, though, that open source is a far off concept - a competition between free Windows and free Linux. I don't even remember a place where I can buy Windows legally. If you ask the dealer, he will just burn a CD for you, for free or for 15 rs. (.25 ). Unless Linux becomes as big as Windows, good luck having it a "Desktop OS".

Facts - MAFIAA skews Dem big-time

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't spell DMCA without the "D"....

Yep, the entertainment industry gives at least twice as much to Democrats as they do to Republicans. Since 1990, they've given $137,219,474 to Dems, and $63,574,385 to Repubs.

The recording industry is even more skewed, giving $13,635,639 to Dems and $3,727,147 to Repubs since 1990. That's 78% to Dems - with some election cycles having 85% of the recording industries political contributions going to Dems.

But that's nothing compared to the movie industry, which gave $47,800,285 to Dems and $7,192,062 to Repubs since 1990. Up to 93% of movie industry political contributions have gone to Dems in some election cycles, with that number never lower than 78%.

There's a reason why the DMCA was signed by a Democratic President. Hell, there are millions of reasons, all of them green...

The cognitive dissonance among sheltered /. basement-dwellers that this post is going to cause will be funny.

Re:I wonder

[malsdavis]

It is indeed a strange twist when the pirated versions are better than the originals.

I noticed this absurdity last week when I had to download a pirated version of a CD I had just bought so that I could actually play it in my car.

Utterly absurd and needless to say, the next album I want I will downloading (via illegal sources of course, those legal sources are the worst of all).

Wow - gross generalization AND wrong...

[Garwulf]

"If anyone realizes that having an economy that is increasingly dependent on "intellectual property" is a bad thing. Nowadays there is no compelling reason to buy things from the copyright holders other than maybe feeling guilty or an affinity for tangible copies. ESPECIALLY since the pirated versions often are much better than the retail versions in functionality and portability."

Wow - now that's a gross over-generalization, and only part of the first sentence is even close to right here...

Going back to front (sort of):

"Nowadays there is no compelling reason to buy things from the copyright holders other than maybe feeling guilty or an affinity for tangible copies."

To meet one gross over-generalization with another, you mean besides keeping the copyright holders in business so that they can continue to produce content? There's a basic economic reality you're missing here - producing any product or content takes time and resources, and to continue to do that requires that money is made to pay for the time and resources.

(And, before somebody bites my head off, yes, I know the internet is a cheap means of distribution, and yes, I know the RIAA treats its content creators horribly - I'm talking in the broadest of strokes here. When it comes down to it, any content creator needs to at least eat.)

But, you know what, you're right - we don't need that pesky literature, movies, and music anyway. If shadow puppets were good enough for our ancestors, they're good enough for us!

"ESPECIALLY since the pirated versions often are much better than the retail versions in functionality and portability."

Um, no, not really. Windows Vista is DRM-happy to the point of stupidity, and the RIAA has done everything it can to drive music fans into the hands of file-sharers, but that doesn't mean that the greater utility lies in files on a computer. Actually, in most cases a physical media tends to have better functionality and portability.

Take movies for example - I can go visit my parents in another city and bring a couple of movies along, and the DVDs are quite light, easy to carry, and all I have to do is put them into any DVD player in North America to have them work. No file copying, no waiting for a download to finish, no taking up space on my hard disk - everything is just on the DVD. When it comes to the DRM stupidity we have been seeing, we have to remember that it's the DRM causing the problems, not the physical format itself.

"If anyone realizes that having an economy that is increasingly dependent on "intellectual property" is a bad thing."

This is the one place where you are at least partially correct. But you shouldn't be saying "intellectual property" here - you should be saying "service-based," because that is what is really there. The United States used to have some of the greatest manufacturing power in the world, and now it seems it actually produces very little. But that's a more complicated argument, and not really relevant to this discussion.

Problems for the drug companies...

[khyron664]

I have to say I agree with this action to some degree. Namely as it relates to drug companies though. I've been involved people that work in the pharmaceutical business, and getting a drub approved by the FDA is NOT easy. Many never make it to market, and almost all of them require a lot of money to develop in R&D. While making a product is no guarantee of making money, they should be allowed some protection for doing the work. Without a patent on the drug, the minute it hits the market it will be reverse engineered by a different drug company and sold cheaper. Some say that is the way it should be, but I honestly don't agree. The company creating the drug is spending a lot of time and money in R&D, without which we wouldn't get the current drugs we have and rely on. Why should another company get to easily piggy back on their efforts? Where is the motivation to find new cures in that environment?

As to the cost of the drugs, the companies are trying to make money. They're not non-profit organizations. Should they be? That's a different question all together which I won't address here. The rest of the world complains about the price of drugs and refuses to pay the prices the drug companies want to charge, instead deciding not to honor the patents on the drugs if the price doesn't come down. The result? The US has much higher drug prices than most of the rest of the world because we end up paying for the companies R&D costs since the rest of the world won't. Sorry, I can't feel bad about sanctions against countries that refuse to carry the burden of R&D costs and leave the US to carry it all. Do I feel the costs be lower? Definitely. However, I also don't know the R&D cost for a particular drug so whose to say the costs aren't in line with a reasonable time line to recoup R&D costs? I can't say I think having for profit companies develop the drugs helps things.

Given this situation, what's the way to handle it OTHER than patents? How can a company recoup the R&D costs (plus a profit) for a drug at a price level that is fair to all countries? Why shouldn't the countries in the rest of the world be forced to honor the drug companies' patents? It's not like it's a field where the companies can simply say "Pay up or you don't get the cure".

I don't really care much about the copyright portion of this story, but I get irked when I see people ranting against drug companies. They're definitely not perfect, but they are getting screwed by the rest of the world as bad as they screw the people in the US imo.

Khyron