Slashdot Mirror
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."
Software piracy in china appear to be social norm, along with the rest of the world.
Canada is up to #3 Woohoo!
Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada are responsible for (up to) 6 billion worth of infringement themselves. Just a bit more than the 710 million claimed.
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/735096--geist-record-industry-faces-liability-over-infringement
Then again, its probably statutory damages vs. actual losses.
Still, I'm proud to be on the list again. Thanks!
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
The US position is understandable as is the position of the rest of the world.
The US is gearing itself more and more to an IP economy, sell knowledge/ideas rather then the products themselves. Apple thinks of the iPod and gets paid for this idea while the actual production and shipping can be done somewhere else. The US is not involved at all in a iPod sold in Holland. So how does Apple ensure it gets paid if not with the enforcement of the concept of IP that tells people you can't just copy their design?
With software and media content, who cares who made it originally? Despite claims by MS that copies of its software have malware pre-installed (they must be thinking of Sony's PC, that now come with a paid for feature to get a clean install) the fact is that I can save myself a lot of money by just heading over to the piratebay for my game PC. (And yes I do still buy games, just not the OS and no I don't care about a raid because I got dozens of licenses lying around from machines that got liberated with the help of the penguin)
And for me, a MS license is not all that expensive for someone living on minimum income, in a nation where a license can come close to a months or even years wages... well the choice is even easier.
The US by continuing to turn into a knowledge only culture (describing the US as a knowledge culture, I am going to have to hand in my EU citizen card for this one) is doing the samething the Brits did pre-WW2. "Why should we produce our own food when we can have foreigners do this for us cheaper and can then use our country side for hunting instead". Capital idea, except that nasty Mr Hitler threw a spanner in the works by sinking the ships bringing in the food. What a rotter.
The knowledge/IP economy only works when everyone is willing to play along. It is easy to argue that everyone benefits but clearly not everyone seems to agree. With a physical goods economy (the one the US got really really big on) it is easier to force people to play along. You can just stop shipments if someone breaks the rules. And it is rather hard to steal 1000tons of goods. Just ask the somali pirates what happens to you when you try to steal US cargo. "TRIPLE SYNCHRONIZED HEADSHOT!" (in Unreal commentator voice). And that is if you are a lucky pirate. The russian put some in a rubber boat that just somehow managed to sink... well worse things happen at sea, especially if you upset russians.
But IP? You don't even have to go to the source, the "victim" just happily sends it to you. If the US wants to sell a DVD in China, it got to send the DVD and then just anyone can copy it/steal it. It is an insane system to rely on for your economy. You don't see Shell going around filling everyone's gas tank then hoping they will pay up?
What is China's motivation for respecting US IP? So that money from its economy floats to the west? How does that aid them? (Well it would allow the US to at least start paying some of its massive debts back) The US is banking its economy on a sector were you really depend on the kindness of strangers. Which seems odd since that is not really what capitalists are best at.
When Germany declared war on Britian, they had to spend a fortune on submarines to attempt to "sink" the UK's economy. If China were to declare war, all it would need to do is stop payments for IP. Oh and stop sending goods. No need to sink cargo vessels, just not let them sail anymore. The battle for the pacific would be won with a piece of paper. What would the US do, bomb Chinese ports to force the sunken ships to sail? Block Chinese banks so the money for IP couldn't be transferred even more?
An IP based economy relies far to much on the recognition that IP has to be paid for and to anyone who doesn't have IP that recognition has no positive sides. China/Russia/Canada/EU/Africa do not gain anything from recognizing US IP. Sure, they probably play along because their politicians either want to keep the peace or are corrupted by lobbyists, but how long will that
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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 live in China (Harbin, to be exact).
The ONLY shops here that seem to sell legal software are some of the supermarket chains. In fact, the only legal software I see in any quantity (and not much of that)are PS3 games, since they haven't been cracked yet. These sell for about 300-400 rmb ($40-$60). Compare that to any other computer game of 4-7 rmb ($0.5-$1).
Same thing with movies. I can often buy the DVD release of a movie before it's available in the west, complete with picture insert and so forth, for around $1.
I understand that music is not a big seller since everyone downloads it.
I often discuss this my students (I'm an English teacher) and, quite literally, EVERYBODY buys / downloads / uses copied media. It's part of the fabric of the country. Since the government love to keep the people happy, you aren't going to see any change whatsoever on this in the near future, despite whatever the Chinese government may say.
The only two examples I know of that seem to 'sell' software with any success is WOW, since they have a separate Chinese micro-payment system, and QQ, an instant messaging service, which also handles micro-transactions (you can upgrade your avatar with extra clothes, and many other things - I've never looked to closely).
1.25 USD per disc
That the main point and why so called "piracy" is also rampant in these various other nations. These media distributors are seriously price gouging, they have some insane idea of what their "copies" are allegedly worth, so the market routes around their idiocy. And everyone knows it. If they made these copies closer to that chinese knock off price, that is also closer to a "fair" price for duplication copies using today's tech. They could make up the difference on volume sales. Instead, 20 bucks a disk, DRM, warnings, etc, then bitch up and down and sideways over piracy.
I mean..duh
Back when making a physical copy actually cost a whole lot more, charging an appropriate price was fair and understandable. This is not the case now, especially with digital downloads, let alone what everyone knows is the price for blank media and making copies in bulk. The **AA cartel just needs to get seriously real on prices, they should have done it years ago. What they charge to *rent* a disk they could afford to just outright sell it, and still make good profit, especially if they kept the packaging costs low. Just stick them in cheap printed paper sleeves, sell for a few bucks, at least have that option. If people wanted the full jewel case and liner notes, swell, charge another couple of bucks, up to but not exceeding five dollars. $20 for a disk is out to lunch, 99 cents for a few megs download is out to lunch as well, the old "allofmp3" prices were a lot fairer.
And yes, to nip the indignant knee jerk reaction in advance, I am fully aware of production costs. That's not the point, they are carved in stone, called a sunk price, after that you want to sell as many copies as possible to make your profit. "Oh noes, I need to charge twenty for this stamped disk to make money, plus this is "what the market will bear". Nope, incorrect again, this is why there is so much piracy, the "market" mostly thinks 20 bucks for a disk is ludicrous, it is *not* bearing it except in way high paid a few nations and only a small subset in those nations. Look again at the parent post, a buck 25 is closer to what the global market of 6.5 billion people can afford. A small fraction of your potential market has enough disposable cash (now, watch as the economy keeps tanking...) to think 20 is cool, the vast bulk of humanity thinks anyone-you the media copy seller are nuts and will not pay that price, and they don't. It's been the collective global big finger to those sort of bloated prices.
Stop price gouging on non scarce and very cheap resources, see what happens.