week 12

  • China and Russia still piracy hotbeds, says US gov

    • http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/04/28/pirates_wto_usgovernment/
  • China and Russia were said to be the world's worst offenders for stealing US intellectual property by the United States Trade Representatives. China remains on the Priority Watch list because of the "high levels of copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting remain serious concerns". Ambassador Susan Schwab state that pirates steal jobs and threatened our health and safety along with stealing ideas. Russia has however making some improvement in handling piracy. They have started to move optical disc factories off of government controlled sites and started raiding unlicensed factories.

    Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and the Ukraine have been moved from the Priority Watch list to the Watch List, with Belize and Lihuania being removed from the report altogether. The nine countries on the Priority Watch List are China, Russia, Argentina, Chili, India, Israel, Pakistan Thailand, and Venezuela. The lower level Watch List consists of 36 countries.

    In class we slightly touched upon international law and seen that global information and communication are connected to a global economic environment.

  • Beijing court hands down first jail term for copyright infringement

    • http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/26/news/China-DVD-Pirate-Imprisoned.php
  • The first jail sentence for copyright infringement was handed down by a Beijing court. Beijing has a lot of pirated DVDs and fake designer goods. The European Union and the United States have been trying to get China to fight more against piracy. Zhou Cheng was sent to jail for one year and fined roughly $1,430 by the Chaoyang District People's Court. In the city of Beijing Zhou was the first person to be incarcerated for copyright infringement. Before this counterfeiters were ordered to pay small fees. Zhou could of been jailed for at least seven years.

    As we have discussed in class there is no single global court or legal system.

  • Internet Copyright Work Commission Opens In Shanghai

    • http://www.chinatechnews.com/2008/04/28/6675-internet-copyright-work-commission-opens-in-shanghai/
  • The Internet Copyright Work Commission opened up in Shanghai. There have been so far over 20 backbone online video service providers in Shanghai. These have submitted application in trying to join the commission. The Internet Copyright Work Commission is attempting to solve copyright problems with the guidance of the government. Its aim is to assist member enterprises to try to set up a unified copyright management rule. It is also trying to formulate a copyright law consulting team.

    As we talked about in class The internet with no boarders and no central or universal control mechanism, which makes international ip more complex.