US Targeting China In New Anti-Piracy Drive 99
oxide7 writes "The United States will make China 'a significant focus' of its beefed-up efforts to fight global piracy and counterfeiting of US goods ranging from CDs to manufactured products, a US official said on Wednesday. The International Intellectual Property Alliance, which represents US copyright industry groups, has estimated lost sales in China at more than $3.5 billion in 2009 due to piracy of US music, movies and software."
Give it a rest (Score:5, Insightful)
Still ahead (Score:1, Insightful)
How much money have these industries made by exporting manufacturing jobs from the US to China?
Re:Give it a rest (Score:1, Insightful)
You seriously expect (Score:4, Insightful)
a US administration helped to power by media/entertainment groups to give a rest protecting their vested interests? Think again.
I have estimated (Score:4, Insightful)
I've estimated the US government owes me 1.63 billion dollars in lost sales.
Because of the existance of the US, I lost the chance of selling my ballpen for exactly 1.63 billion dollars.
Yes, my claim is much closer to reality than theirs and no, I won't explain how exactly I'm entitled to money from sales I didn't do, either.
Would be nice to see (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the kind of piracy that we need to worry about because it isn't just a matter of copyright infringement, it is a matter of fraud. When you make a knockoff copy of something and sell it to someone as legit, you are defrauding them, and you really are causing economic loss to the company who legitimately makes the product. That is a good deal different from simply copying something without permission. It is something worth trying to shut down because it is a real crime with real victims.
I'm all for spending resources on cracking down on crimes where there are victims. I'm not so interested in spending lots of resources on victimless crimes.
Re:Give it a rest (Score:5, Insightful)
The level of copyright enforcement in China is probably directly related to how much the industry is willing to pay the enforcers. Share enough of the profits, and I bet China would be happy to send pirates away to a gulag.
In the long run though, copyright is over. A few major industries will cease to exist in their current form during the next century. All digital content will be considered basically free in a sort of universal public library. What money there is to make will be made by showing movies in theaters, performing live music, and selling physical books to fans of the digital version. I think we'll see a real renaissance once the chains of industry are removed.
China doesn't respect copyright even to the extent of westerners. Unfortunately for the US, that means they could be first to prosper from this revolution. It may be that in 50 years, Chinese villagers will educate themselves with the best books and movies for free, while we in the US are enslaved under the RIAA's latest hellish plot.
Re:Give it a rest (Score:1, Insightful)
You got it backwards. The US is imposing unfair disadvantages on their own industry by forcing them to pay for information that would naturally be free. The next time someone bemoans jobs going to China they should complain to the government about stupid copyright laws harming the US industry.
Re:Would be nice to see (Score:3, Insightful)
Only level 2 and 3 infringement cause actual damage to companies, but somehow 'copyright infringement' has become synonymous for the level 1 infringement... Which seems to be caused by the large campaigns launched by the MAFIAA and their associates, who exclusively fight against the level 1 infringement. The Pirate Bay provides a service and makes ad-revenue, but does not belong to level 2... but some sites do ask money for downloading the products straight from them and clearly commit a level 2 infringement (which may actually cause damage), but these are never attacked bij the MAFIAA and brought to court. If they claim to defend their financial interest in their products it's raises the question: Why don't they actually fight the infringement that causes the damage to the revenue?
This clearly demonstrates that the MAFIAA was not interested in protecting their existing revenue stream, but are only trying to create an additional (unrelated) stream of litigation-revenue from the consumers who commit level 1 infringement.
Please note that the article is about a new development to combat the extensive level 2 & 3 infringement in China (since the copied media is just sold on the street there it would count as level 2), so it seems the MAFIAA is finally moving along to more legally stable ground (since these violations can't be debated so easily, especially when piled up with the level 3 violations and presented to the Chinese)... I wonder, if we can be bankrupted for infringing some songs, would the Chinese be executed for selling Britney Spears???
Re:Give it a rest (Score:2, Insightful)
the notion of "piracy is OK because it's so common in China that it's not regarded as a crime"
Who said anything about piracy being ok because it's common in China?
Piracy is a crime, assaulting ships and possibly killing their crew is violent and has to be stopped.
In case you were talking about copying information: Nobody is ever harmed by that. The whole concept of being an owner of an infinitely available item is absurd to begin with. Ownership only makes sense for items with finite availability. That's why "piracy" (assuming you were talking about copying information and not about real piracy) is ok. It has nothing to do with China.
That's why the US are hurting their own industry. Well, most of their own industry. There are obviously a few parasitic branches that greatly benefit from the copyright and patent law - at the expense of everyone else.
WTF... (Score:4, Insightful)
So the chinese have saved themselves $3.5 billion, good for them...
If copyright was enforced then 99% of those chinese people would simply never have had any of this stuff at all. They would be using locally chinese produced media, or freely available media instead. Most of these people simply couldn't afford to pay what US media companies demand.
It does show where the US governments priorities lie tho, they are willing to lean on the chinese over copyrights but couldn't care less about human rights or the environment.
Re:Give it a rest (Score:5, Insightful)
The legitimate producers could afford to price match or even undercut the copied works due to economies of scale...
Faced with 2 identical products for the same price, people will always choose the more reputable source...
But the fact is, dvdorderonline has a highly profitable business, because of the price fixing cartels in the west they are able to take unrealistically high margins on their products while still undercutting the competition and offering a superior product (no drm, no unskippable junk etc)... If faced with stiff competition, their margins would be razor thin like virtually every other line of business.
Re:Give it a rest (Score:3, Insightful)
Artists are not expected to work for free, but similarly they shouldn't be allowed to continue being paid for work they've done long ago.
I personally am disgusted to see artists who haven't produced any work in years, still making huge amounts of money...
Put it this way, if i came to your house and did some plumbing work for you, would you give me a one off payment for the work and consider it settled, or would you continue paying me for the plumbing while i sat around taking drugs and rolling around drunk in a huge mansion you were paying for?
Noone deserves to just get an easy ride...
Re:Would be nice to see (Score:3, Insightful)
Copyright infringement generally doesn't result in inferior copies anymore... That was the old propaganda, that pirate copies were inferior to legitimately purchased copies and this was usually true in the days of analog media... Today, a digital copy could be absolutely identical to the original, or it could actually be superior (eg the DRM or other consumer-hostile features are removed).
Re:Would be nice to see (Score:3, Insightful)
I do agree though, digital pirated copies are without a doubt a 'value added' product! No DRM, phoning home, added portability and compatibility etc. I've downloaded games I bought because the game crashed on install or required the CD in the drive, or another example: a Blueray movie can't be played with an Xbox360, but a Blueray-rip can (full HD)!
Re:WTF... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Give it a rest (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Give it a rest (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually - I'd be quite happy to see piracy increase by orders of magnitude. I hope it drives a bunch of US companies to bankruptcy.
Let's think a couple minutes. What exactly has fueled all the exporting of American jobs? Corporate greed. Outsourcing? Corporate greed. Copyright? Corporate greed. Corporations export jobs by the thousands, and tens of thousands - but they still want to be paid - for WHAT?
Screw 'em. Let them keep exporting jobs. And, they can export all those executive bonuses along with the jobs. Export all the profits that the shareholders are dreaming of. Export it all. I have absolutely no loyalty to any corporation, as they have no loyalty to American workers.
This has been going on for about 30 years now. I kept expecting things to reach an equilibrium. No equilibrium is visible on any horizon yet.
I'm waiting for the day that only the wealthier 25% of American can afford to buy cheap Chinese junk at Wal-Mart. RIAA and MPAA execs will be among that wealthier 25% - for awhile. Until the American people revolt, and put all those execs in line for firing squads or guillotines.