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This article documents China's promise to step up its efforts to punish violators of intellectual property rights outline in the agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Proprety Rights (TRIPs). China unveiled an outline of a new enforcement policy of IPR's, eaded by the deputy director of its National Copyright Administration's copyright management bureau, Xu Chao. Their response comes after multiple please by the U.S. for the Chinese to further crackdown on IPR infringement, despite Chinese claims of significant progress. China's law stipulates a maximum of seven years i prison for copyrigh violators. However, the Chinese still do not meet international IPR protection standards. The aforementioned outline promulgated the Chinese goal to increase its self directed IPR levels within 5 years. Furthermore, the Chinese plan to fully ramp up their efforts, similar to international levels, by 2020.
This article will help illustrate some of the causes of the rampant Chinese piracy of U.S. IPR. There exists both a punitive and a cultural defecit between the two countries. The lack of genuine enforcement of IPR domestically has enfuriated U.S. copyright officials and trade czars for decades. There seems to exist a chasm between the two countries as to the moral reprehensibility of copyright ifringement, illustrated by the Chinese complancency with their progress, that may help contextualize much of the discrepancy in policy goals between the two countries. This article will serve as background support and evidence to my larger goal of first proving the enforcement of international copyright law and then documenting the trade agreements put in place to accomplish this very task.
tagged china ipr piracy by mitully ...on 25-NOV-08
This article draws on theories of globalization, technology, and the struggles between trade agreements and copyright objectives to place international piracy into a global context. The author, Shujen Wang, examines the the role of Hollywood in shaping trade agreements and piracy policy as well as the interconnectedness of unilateral and multilateral solutions. Specifically, Wang documents the General Agreement on Tarrifs and Trade (GATT) which led to the creation of the WTO, the growth of U.S. trade policy from the WTO's agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). While analyzing the importance and role international piracy and copyright law play within the framework of these multinational trade agreements, Wang illustrates the necessity for copyright protection via the importance of the copyright industry in the U.S. economy. Moreover, Wang tracks the way techological developments like VCR's and DVD's have changed the moral landscape of the pirating industry and Hollywood's lobbying efforts to push for protect copyrights internationally.
This article incorporates many of the essential themes of my topic, including techology's ability to alter and push the boundaries of domestic and international copyright statutes, international piracy's role in shaping trade agreements, and the U.S.' ability to use these trade agreements to open up markets and ensure strict copyright protection for its goods. Furthermore, the article cites the specific legislation, trade organizations, and trade agreements that have been instrumental in shaping the two-pronged U.S. approach to copyright protection. Specifically with the passage of the Permanent Normal Trade Relations act with China in 1999. Overall, this article provides valuable insight into constrcting a fraework that encapsulates the complexity of Chinese piracy and how it has affected our bargaining and trade agreements and policies.
After giving this overview, which shows how often the United States has tried to influence the IPR regimes of the four BRIC countries, the article delves into a section entitled, “Coercion as an Ineffective Strategy in Promoting Intellectual Property Protection in the BRIC Countries.” This section is long and detailed with many examples of statistics showing how the United States has not achieved its goals through means of coercion. The article explicitly gives statistics for each country. The culmination of this large number of statistics is to show that not only does coercion not necessarily work, it can often be detrimental to the original goal. Examples of poor results are given for China and India.
The final section of this article argues that unilateral initiatives are an understudied method of strengthening IPR regimes in the BRIC countries. Unilateral initiatives are defined as “a voluntary conciliatory action presented by one party to the benefit of the other.” Examples of unilateral initiatives that have been successful are then given.
This article is plainly written with an obvious objective: to endorse unilateral initiatives as opposed to coercion as a way of reforming IPR in the BRIC countries. This method of change is supportive of a gradual change in the IPR regime in China as it does not expect immediate results and therefore, presents an effective means of carrying through with the project's thesis, which is always an important consideration when proposing an argument.
The article poses an initial answer to these questions by citing empirical studies that suggest developing countries develop best with weak IPR regimes and that only as these countries become more developed should they enforce stricter regimes. Examples of countries that have enacted stronger IPR regimes as their economies developed are East Asian counties including Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, and notably the United States. Yet, what the empirical evidence lacks, according to this article, is a timetable for deciding when a country is developed enough to implement a strong IPR regime. To understand the situation further, the article turns to a study of Microsoft software in China.
In this study, the article first gives an overview explaining how prevalent piracy is in China. The article then shows that despite this piracy, Microsoft has entered the Chinese market with great difficulties. Piracy of Microsoft products subsequently increased and contrary to logic, this led Microsoft to further invest in China in an attempt to promote legal usage of Microsoft products. This further investment was presumably because Microsoft sees China as the largest potential market in the world.
This study then shows that, contrary to some scholars’ beliefs, a weak IPR regime can lead to an increased investment in developing countries. However, this is counterbalanced by the belief that an investment of high-tech products does not allow the developing country to discover its own technologies/products/ideas.
This article, although slightly redundant with other sources, is crucial to backing the project's thesis that developing countries and especially China are best advised to take a gradual approach to implementing strong IPR regimes. The article also fully supports the argument that China is best suited to a gradual increase in its IPR protection in that the article presents a case study showing that foreign investment in China will still occur despite its weaker IPR protection than developed nations.
Call#: Van Pelt Library KNQ1155 .M47 2005
This book is essential for any study of intellectual property rights or copyright in modern China. Because it is one of few books devoted entirely to this subject, The Politics of Piracy provides the reader with an indispensable source of information and a unique thesis on the problem of piracy in the People’s Republic of China. The book’s thesis is as follows: “The direction of external pressure and the characteristics of the institutions it is designed to change are crucial to understanding the effects of foreign pressure on policy enforcement outcomes.”
As can be seen by this sentence, which merely states Mertha’s hypothesis, the book can, at times, be difficult to read. The writing does not flow as smoothly as it could but this reflects some of the harder concepts that Mertha tries to tackle. To defend his thesis, Mertha mainly uses empirical case studies as opposed to broad statistical evidence, presumably because statistical evidence on piracy in China is fraught with a great deal of unreliability.
One of the best aspects of this book is that it devotes an entire chapter to each type of intellectual property: patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Because most books on IPRs deal with multiple developing economies, they tend to lump all IPRs together. This book treats each IPR as its own entity and explores their problems and possible solutions with the attention they require.
It must be stated that this book treats IPRs in China from an obvious etic perspective and argues that most reform in China’s IPR protection comes from foreign, usually United States, pressure. Mertha believes that this is a good and effective method for bringing China’s IPR standards into compliance with Western standards. However, one of the strengths of Mertha’s book, the penultimate chapter, discusses problems with his thesis and his approach to the subject. As a consequence, this book is very valuable to the topic of intellectual property rights in China despite its sometimes difficult prose.
The value of this book in relation to my thesis is that the book illustrates one aspect of the relationship between China and the US. This book shows that by pressuring China, the United States has achieved higher standards of IPR protection. To my thesis, this suggests that as China has become more important economically, it has also become more important regarding IPR. This importance proves a correlation between the strength of the economy and the strength of IPRs that goes well toward advancing the argument for China's gradual improvement of IPRs.
tagged China Copyright IPR Piracy by rogerlm ...and 1 other person ...on 31-JUL-06
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But, as we all know, these numbers regarding China are completely bogus anyways. Because most MPAA member movies can't be sold in China so they have no loss. China only allows 20 foreign films to be imported each year, and usually 14 - 16 of these are from MPAA members. So what the MPA is talking about in this report isn't "profits lost to pirates in China" but "profits lost to closed markets in China".