Posted on 03/30/2006 10:10:09 AM PST by Golden Eagle
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez says that the US will focus more on intellectual property rights violations.
BEIJING – Liu Tong is polite to a fault, speaks perfect English, majored in American studies, has loads of American friends he loves to phone - and duplicates Japanese and American high-tech goods for a living. Mr. Liu buys unusual, specialized technology - a machine to make film subtitles is a recent project, for example. He disassembles the machine, duplicates the parts, and rebuilds a Chinese version. The process, called "reverse engineering," is the more serious side of a long-running feud between the US and China over intellectual property rights violations - one that includes mass production of pirated DVDs of movies, music, and software.
Now, as Chinese president Hu Jintao prepares to visit the US next month to discuss what Bush administration officials term "our $250 billion relationship," Washington seems to be backing away from a trade war over currency valuation that would slap an epic 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese exports.
Instead, US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez indicated here Wednesday that the White House will focus on a more diffuse and difficult problem: intellectual property rights (IPR).
"Not currency valuation ... but intellectual property rights violations are the main threat to US industry" argues Stephen Green, senior economist for the London-based Standard Charter Bank in Shanghai, China. "It is the taking of emerging technology, the sophisticated technology that resides in the products of large Western firms, that can do the most harm in the long term."
(Excerpt) Read more at christiansciencemonitor.com ...
Yep. But, if we can't even make the college kids stop copying music, what are the chances that the Chinese will do it?
It's going to take technology to provide better barriers to illegal use while keeping legitimate use accessible, which is generally referred to as DRM (Digital Rights Management) and includes a variety of methods and products. When that doesn't work, damages have to be sought in a court of law.
That process is slowly begining to work here in the US, as illegal file sharing continues to dwindle. Implementing it internationally will be more difficult, and will require both better DRM and foreign courts prosecuting such offenses, which will of course be the most difficult hurdle.
But based on China's obligations as a member of the WTO, they must respect and protect the intellectual property of other WTO members. If not, their membership can be threatened, which is what I'd prefer to see anyway.
Like so much the world enjoys, the US consumer picks up the tab.
Agreed, the desire to sin is just to powerful for some to control. But it can be slowed, overall. And will be, worldwide, just as it is begining to here in the US.
Joke, joke, joke.
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