*NEWS*CHINA SLAMS U.S. PIRACY COMPLAINT

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Date: Thursday April 12, 2007 03:50:00 pm
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    China slams US piracy complaint

    China has criticised the
    US over its decision to file a formal complaint with the World Trade
    Organization over copyright piracy and counterfeiting.

    The US says that China’s failure to enforce
    copyright laws is costing software, music and book publishers billions of
    dollars in lost sales.

    The US also argues that China makes it hard
    for legitimate firms to operate.

    China “expressed great regret and strong
    dissatisfaction at the decision”, the state news agency said.

    Tighter enforcement

    The Xinhua news agency quoted Intellectual
    Property Office commissioner Tian Lipu as saying that it was “not a
    sensible move for the US government to file such a complaint” at the World
    Trade Organization (WTO).

    “By doing so, the US has ignored the
    Chinese government’s immense efforts and great achievements in strengthening
    intellectual property rights protection and tightening enforcement of its
    copyright laws,” the commissioner added.

     

     

    On Monday, the US trade representative Susan
    Schwab said that piracy and counterfeiting levels in China remained
    unacceptably high.

    The US said that despite China’s promises to
    crackdown on fake software, DVDs, luxury goods, car parts and shoes, many of
    the goods were still widely available throughout the country.

    China is one of the world’s largest producers
    of counterfeit products, ranging from designer clothes, to pirated films and
    music, to luggage.

    Many of the goods find their way into Europe
    and are knowingly bought as fakes by shoppers at markets and from street
    vendors. Firms claim that the poor quality copies dent their brand and divert
    profits and potenital clients.

    ‘Criminal sanction’

    The US has been threatening a WTO complaint
    against China since 2005.

    It said on Tuesday that the two cases had
    been submitted to the WTO.

    One case claims that Beijing’s poor
    enforcement of copyright and trademark protections violates WTO rules. The
    other contends that illegal barriers to hamper sales of US films, music and
    books.

    “Excessively high legal thresholds for
    launching criminal prosecutions offer a safe harbor for pirates and
    counterfeiters,” the US said.

    “Pirates and counterfeiters who
    structure their operations to fit below those thresholds face no possibility of
    criminal sanction.”

    A 60-day consultation period follows for
    negotiators to try to resolve the disagreements. Should this fail, then a WTO
    panel would rule on the case
    .

     

    Piracy Case May Raise Tensions With China

    WASHINGTON (April 07) – The Bush administration formally
    took its longstanding spat with China over pirated movies, music and books to
    the World Trade Organization. The move represents a further increase in trade
    tensions between the two countries.

    U.S. Trade Representative Susan
    Schwab  made the
    official announcement. “Piracy and counterfeiting levels in China remain
    unacceptably high,” Ms. Schwab said in a prepared statement.

    While acknowledging China’s leaders have made progress to improve property rights
    protections for movies, music, books and other goods, she said the U.S. and
    China haven’t been able to agree on legal changes the U.S. believes are needed
    for China to comply with its commitments as a member of the WTO.

    The U.S. plans Tuesday to ask for dispute-settlement consultations from the WTO
    on two matters: one claiming deficiencies in China’s legal structures to
    protect and enforce copyrights and trademarks; and the other challenging
    barriers to China’s market for books, music, videos and movies.

    The Chinese Ministry of Commerce didn’t have any immediate comment on the
    expected move, which was reported in Saturday’s editions of The Wall Street
    Journal and New York Times.

    While supported by the U.S. movie and music businesses, the complaints have
    stirred unease among executives of other U.S. industries, including drug
    companies and high-tech manufacturers. Many fear that a clash with China over
    piracy could undermine the increasing cooperation they have won over the past
    year with local Chinese officials on combating the problem.

    Ma Xiushan, deputy general secretary of the China Intellectual Property
    Society, said the cases will be seen as a negative signal from the U.S. at a
    time “when China is working very hard to narrow our distance from the U.S.
    and other developed countries in intellectual property rights protection.”

    Henry Gao, a former WTO official who teachers at the University of Hong Kong
    now, said, “I am not sure the U.S. can win this case.” He noted that
    the criminal penalties for piracy in China are, under WTO rules, supposed to be
    “consistent with the level of penalties applied for crimes of a
    corresponding gravity.” It isn’t obvious what crimes are equivalent to
    being caught with 500 CDs, he said. “This is where the U.S. will have to
    come up with some really good arguments.”

    “This will drag the WTO into sensitive political issues and I think the
    WTO probably will be very cautious here,” he added. Yet he noted that in
    the past China has taken action to defuse WTO complaints before they come to a
    head.

    China has taken a number of steps recently to crack down on piracy, increasing
    penalties and lowering the thresholds for what constitutes a criminal act.
    Chinese provincial authorities have worked alongside U.S. industries to carry
    out a series of raids against factories and warehouses trafficking in
    counterfeit goods.

    “The piracy issue is a world-wide issue,” said Chen Zhaokuan, deputy
    director of the Copyright Society of China. “Many countries are facing the
    same challenges in their anti-piracy campaigns. For China, we are a later-comer
    in this area, and it’s natural that the sense of copyright protection among the
    Chinese people is not that strong. Considering how much work we have done to
    promote the copyrights protection and to fight against piracy in the past 10
    years, we already have made many achievements.”

    U.S. industry groups that aren’t expected to support the WTO cases include the
    Business Software Alliance, whose members include Microsoft  Corp. and Apple  Inc., and the Pharmaceutical Research and
    Manufacturers of America, the drug industry’s main trade group. Both sectors
    have made their own market-access and antipiracy advances and don’t want to see
    that work disturbed, administration and industry officials said.

    The cases add to a list of U.S. trade actions against China in recent months.
    The administration in February filed a WTO case alleging that Beijing doled out
    unfair subsidies to a range of Chinese industries, while last month the
    Commerce Department broke decades of precedent by opening the way for U.S.
    companies to seek higher tariffs on some Chinese paper imports found to have
    benefited from government subsidies.

    The first case will make a number of specific complaints against China’s
    enforcement of its own piracy laws. Current Chinese law says that in the case
    of counterfeit CDs, for instance, one must be caught with at least 500 to be
    charged with a crime. The U.S. will argue that there should be no such
    threshold.

     

    The case will also argue that it should be illegal to either
    distribute or produce counterfeit goods. Chinese law requires one to be caught
    doing both before being charged.

    “This case is going to be very technical, very targeted and very
    specific,” said one industry official with knowledge of the
    administration’s case.

    The other complaint will target what the U.S. alleges to be overly restrictive
    rules on the distribution of foreign CDs, DVDs, books and other media products.
    The case won’t seek to overturn the limit placed by Beijing on foreign films
    that are allowed to show in Chinese theaters, which is now set at 20 films a
    year.

    DVDs of Hollywood blockbusters and CDs of the latest pop hits are readily
    available in shops or on streetcorners in Chinese cities. Almost all of them —
    90% or more, according to most industry estimates — are illegal copies. The
    problem has also stunted the development of China’s own film industry, as
    pirated DVDs hit the market so quickly that most films can make little money
    from ticket sales or legitimate DVD sales.

    One reason the U.S. is also pushing its complaint about restrictions on
    distribution of foreign movies is that there is currently little legally
    available content to compete with pirated versions in China. As previously
    reported, studios like Fox and Warner have been trying to market legitimate DVD
    products in China at prices the local market can bear in an effort to wean
    Chinese consumers off pirated alternatives.

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