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China Rejects US Piracy Claims As "Groundless"
eldavojohn writes "Earlier this month, a United States piracy list fingered China, Russia, and Canada as the first, second and third worst governments (respectively) for enforcing copyright policy in the world. China's Foreign Ministry has rejected these claims as 'groundless' just before meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Monday and Tuesday in Beijing to address copyright policy. The official Chinese statement read, 'The involved US Congress members should respect the fact and stop making groundless accusations against China.' The plan nevertheless remains to use the visit to pressure China into overhauling its failed attempts to curb piracy, since software piracy in China appears to be a social norm, with the Chinese government possibly even leading by example."
I am not in favor of getting rid of software or media copyrights. I think there is an absolute place and need for them. But I am in favor of greatly reducing their lengths, which have grown way out of control. In today's world, a copyright should not last for more than maybe 10 years.
FOSS and traditionally copyrighted software can and do exist together quite fine. And they also play nice together, giving software developers and users lots of choice and possibilities.
Software PATENTS, on the other hand, are just horrible and should go away. They destroy all innovation, create needless complexity, chill all markets, ruin consumer choice, and hurt players of all sizes.
I praise the Chinese government for standing up against U.S. corporations pushing their desires through their puppets.
I think you need to restrict your statement to just software. While, yes, the RIAA and MPAA are probably pressuring the US government to do this, I do not think the response to ignore it altogether for music and movies helps. There's a happy medium somewhere and it's not the abhorrent 90 to 120 years that the US has while I equally think that the Chinese government's "0 day" copyright protection would make music and movie production a near impossible profit in China (movies would be right out while musicians would need to depend on only live performances). Just think how much China's Hollywood or music scene would dwarf the United States' if they had an enforced ~20 year copyright policy. After all there are four times as many citizens there than here. Shouldn't they be producing roughly four times the amount of music and movies the United States does? I know they have more than I see but I get the feeling they see more American media due at least in some part because of this (note: not entirely).
For software, I have a similar attitude about the length of copyright but I think what you're overlooking is that a lot of companies start in software because it's copyrighted and later end up funding or contributing back to open source. There aren't a lot of Red Hats or Canonicals and even then those have their own in house code projects. I don't see licenses like the GPL or BSD as "stopgaps," I see them as a solution to coexistence and freedom to decide what your creation becomes. You want to hobble it with a copyright license of insane length proportions? Go right ahead, it is America "land of the free" after all.
My work here is dung.
I can't really speak for China or Russia, but Canada is no more a haven for pirating than the US. What makes Canada a "problem" is that they have some of the best laws in the world regarding the privacy of its citizens. So that means that a corporation can't just go to an ISP and demand information on a random user and have their account suspended without due process. So Canada's problem is that it values people over corporations.
Oh, and for the record, I'm an American, not Canadian; and yes, I am jealous.
I don't get how Canada can be in the top three while Thailand isn't Thailand basically has the same views on copyright as China and Russia do, but Canadians pay a "copyright tax" on all blank media, which goes to the media industries. The media industries are being paid. What's the problem. (I'm not Canadian.)
Put identity in the browser.
Flamebait? He stated the truth. But he also left out this part: The US is so vehement to protects its music, movies, and so forth because, like Rome at the end of its life, the country has nothing left to offer the world except entertainment. The US wants to protect that cashflow, else it would go bankrupt.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
In my country, people download pirated copies from the Internet for free. They will in China too, as Internet continues to propagate and the Great Firewall continues to be bypassed in more and more effective ways.
And why would they? Enforce copyright law -> send money to Hollywood, don't enforce copyright -> money stays home. It acts as an effective toll barrier, helping Chinese economy grow. We should learn from that, not condemn it.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
TVs? nope. (not on the map)
Radios? nope. (not on the map)
Computers? nope. (very distant 5th)
Refrigerators? nope. (not even on the map)
Steel? nope. (distant 4th)
Automobiles? nope. (distant 4th)
Trucks? nope. (distant 3rd)
Furniture? Nope.
So, if the USA basically doesn't make anything of significant value in quantity, HOW is it #2 in manufacturing?
Weapons.
Number #1 with a BULLET.
The USA's biggest industry is the exercise of its imperial reach and the development of devices that do not produce wealth (outside the imperial model of invasion and theft), which means that its method of acquiring resources has met the law of diminishing returns and is in a state every empire faces prior to its collapse. (Tainter, Joseph A. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1988.)
Don't get all huffy at me, I'm just reporting the news...
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
I like to support people that make things. They just don't let me. So I steal it. When there is no way to buy a product with specific features, but the pirated copy has those features by default, then the pirated copy is both worth more and costs less.
If they'd just make it available for purchase in no worse format than I can steal, then I'd buy it.
Or, to make it a car analogy, I can buy a Ford for $20,000 or get a kit from a guy down the street that costs me $2000 and is faster with better mileage, increased safety and reliability that may happen to infringe on a Ford patent or two (being a direct rip-off with improvements Ford refuses, for some reason, to include in their own product), why would I ever go to a dealership if I can get away with using the cheaper and better-in-every-measurable-way rip-off?
No, I *like* to pay for what I use. Hell, I've even donated to pirate sites and/or parties. But I can't bring myself to pay for something deliberately crippled when there exists a less crippled version already available that's superior in every measured way. That's not the moral choice, that's the stupid choice.
Learn to love Alaska