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US, China Working On Intellectual Property Rights
itwbennett writes "US Attorney General Eric Holder is visiting Beijing this week to discuss how China and the US can better coordinate efforts to stop intellectual property rights violations. 'One of the things that has happened in recent years is that counterfeiting has become a globalized industry,' said Christian Murck, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. To effectively shut down these operations, cross-country efforts at strengthening global enforcement like Holder's visit to China are crucial, he added. Coinciding with Holder's visit, China announced it will launch a new national campaign to crack down on intellectual property rights violations. The campaign will take aim at the production and distribution of pirated goods such as DVDs and software products. Violations relating to registered trademarks and patents will also be targeted. The campaign will last for half a year. The commercial value of pirated software in China, at $7.5 billion, is second only to that in the US, where it is $8.3 billion, according to the Business Software Alliance and IDC."
Coincidental timing after China's latest strangling of rare earths, yes?
It just means that China is now doing significant in-country R&D and authorship that they have a vested interest in protecting.
Pre-1900, the US was the same way. We couldn't give two shits about the European IP we were constantly ripping, and it pissed off plenty of European countries. Once we really started developing stuff in-country, our IP laws suddenly grew teeth.
History repeating itself itself.
As opposed discussing how to coordinate efforts to stop human rights violations.
Coincidental timing after China's latest strangling of rare earths, yes?
It just means that China is now doing significant in-country R&D and authorship that they have a vested interest in protecting.
Pre-1900, the US was the same way. We couldn't give two shits about the European IP we were constantly ripping, and it pissed off plenty of European countries. Once we really started developing stuff in-country, our IP laws suddenly grew teeth.
History repeating itself itself.
The history is accurate, but not quite a reflection of current events IMO (although it may someday get there).
The counterfeiting is happening in China. If they were interested in stopping it, then they would do so. It's not like the counterfeiters are exactly hiding their production factories. This is China, knowing that the American politicians will never get tough on China, seeing as how they're financing most of our out-of-control national debt.
It's why nothing has come of thirty years of "Middle East Peace Talks". All the talking in the world won't do you any good if both parties at the table aren't really sincere.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.