China has shut down 76 websites in a 4-month operation against on...
China has shut down 76 websites in a 4-month operation against online piracy, National Copyright Administration Deputy Dir. Yan Xiaohong said Wed., Reuters reported. Fourteen of the 172 cases investigated were prompted by requests from non-Chinese companies and groups,…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
including the MPAA, which said a Beijing company was offering American movies like The Pacifier for unauthorized download, AFP reported. That company was filed about $11,100, Yan said. “What we've investigated may be a very small portion of the problem,” but China “will have better cooperation and exchanges with international organizations so as to enhance our capability to better fight Internet piracy,” Yan said. Both online and hard piracy are common in China because of high prices for authorized copies and govt. restrictions on cultural imports, with several Western movies not officially available. China is also weighing whether to sign 2 international treaties that take aim at online piracy, and has come under pressure to do so by the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), which issued a report on U.S.-China trade relations this week. The report called intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement “one of China’s greatest shortcomings.” China “still plays a modest role relative to its economic and political heft” in international “trade- enhancing” institutions like the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and isn’t even part of WIPO’s Internet treaties, the report said. It has also participated only “on a limited basis” in the International Telecom Union. But the report said headway was being made from U.S. pressure, with China agreeing to increase IPR prosecutions and fight hard and online piracy of movies, audio products and software. USTR Rob Portman briefly addressed China and the Internet in a Tues. news conference on the report. He said U.S. comparative advantage over China “includes high technology, it includes some of these Internet services” and “knowledge- based exports,” and the U.S. is “disproportionately impacted” by piracy because of its world primacy in software exports and entertainment products. He declined to comment on Hill proposals to prevent U.S. companies from locating servers on Chinese soil, saying he hadn’t seen them yet.