Apr 23 2008
china IPR enforcement: some more numbers
Xinhua is reporting that China destroyed some 47 million copies of illegal publications this past Sunday. And it gives even more numbers from the past 20 years. The article reads:
Chinese authorities destroyed 47.18 million pornographic and illegal publications on Sunday as part of an ongoing campaign to strengthen intellectual property rights (IPR) protection.
More than 17 provinces eliminated more than 1 million pieces each, with Guangdong topping the list, destroying 12 million, or a quarter of the total.
China has attached great importance to IPR protection, which has been considered as a national strategy to help build an innovative country, said Liu Binjie, director of the National Copyright Administration.
According to official statistics, China has in the past 20 years closed down 238 pirate disc production lines, solved more than 400,000 cases of IPR infringement and confiscated more than 1.3 billion illegal publications.
Official statistics show that last year, 2,967 people were arrested for suspected violations of IPR. Public security departments investigated 2,283 cases of IPR infringement and made arrests in 2,008 cases, involving 1.49 billion yuan (about 213 million U.S. dollars).
These are nothing to laugh at. Sure, it’s still the tip of the iceberg, but it isn’t true that China is doing nothing and looking the other way at intellectual property infringement. At least, let’s look at the cold hard facts and not the BSA and MPAA propaganda.
Stan Abrams at China Hearsay commented on my last post about this matter, which noted that China’s IPR enforcement is actually quite laudable:
welcome to my world. Misery loves company, and trying to explain why IP enforcement is now much better in China compared to the state things were in several years ago is a thankless task. Furthermore, explaining how some of the statements made by the trade associations can actually set back the political debate can be dangerous for us practicing lawyers.
I can’t tell you how many times I run into people who think that China is an IP black hole without laws in copyright, trademark, or patent. That is completely wrong. While China isn’t quite at par with the United States in terms of its enforcement, we all know that intellectual property protection has been increasing in China: there have been cases where foreign companies win trademark lawsuits (Starbucks v. Shanghai Xingbake Cafe Corp, here) and even patent suits (Motorola, here). Courts are enforcing IPRs, thank you very much. There is already one case where damages were out the roof: G2000. (See China Business Law Blog) The government has been conducting a lot of raids. Sure, you can walk through the streets of Beijing or Shanghai and see pirated DVD vendors. But really, the numbers are encouraging: 1.3 billion publications and 400,000 cases in 20 years.
I think its time for the west to recognize that China is cleaning up its act and there are IP laws in place and being enforced. The next time a business person comes up to you and says “China doesn’t have an IP laws”, give them the facts. Or point them here.
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Tom,
The first question of the Xinhua article begs the question: what percentage of those 47 million are infringing publications and what percentage are illegal publications? 13 million of the 149 million, or slightly under 10%, illegal publications destroyed last year by the National Office for Cleaning Up Pornography and Fighting Illegal Publications were just a good old-fashioned book burning of politically subversive materials and porn. In the year of the Olympics and the Himalayas, should we assume that this ratio stands or that it has risen or fallen? I’d like to hope that as time passes governments become more stable and less insecure, thus feeling more able to allow the spread of otherwise troublesome expression, so I’m going with stands, but hopefully fallen by a fraction of a percentage point.
Tom,
I agree with what you said about the incremental progress made by China over the past years in tackling the IP problems. I am not the expert in this area though I am trying to find out more about it. The current dual channel system for IP protection in China shall more or less help business to protect their IP more or less, though there are still a lot to improve. But I also think that the PRC Government shall initiate more public campaign of IP protection and a well educated mass shall minimize the IP violation risks at all.
Will,
Good point. It’s hard to say which are illegal and which are IPR related. I don’t think China wanted to give that number out on purpose…
As for the ratio in light of the Olympics, somehow I don’t think China is going to release those numbers to us… or at best, a number that is made for public consumption. I doubt the government will open that can of worms, especially when it comes to censorship. They aren’t stupid, but that’s just my guess.
Stephen,
I believe they are trying to do more public campaigning. Stan Abrams at China Hearsay had a post about something of that nature yesterday or 2 days ago. Thanks for dropping by!
Tom