China Complains About Copyright Piracy Problems

China Complains About the View of Copyright Piracy Problem

On Sunday, China's top official in charge of fighting copyright piracy condemned what he said was purposeful misrepresentation of the problem by the Western media which caused the country's poor global image. China said that important facts had been ignored.

Foreign governments, including the United States, have for years urged China to take a stronger stand against persistent violations of intellectual property rights on products ranging from medicines to software to DVD movies sold on the street.

But Tian Lipu, head of China's State Intellectual Property Office, said the government's efforts were being ignored.

"Speaking honestly, there is a market. People use and buy pirated goods," Tian told reporters on the sidelines of a landmark Communist Party congress.

"To a large extent, China's intellectual property rights protection image has been distorted by Western media.

"China's image overseas is very poor. As soon as people hear China they think or piracy and counterfeiting Sanlitun, that place in Shanghai, Luohu in Shenzhen," he said, referring to places notorious for selling fake goods.

"We don't deny this problem, and we are continuing to battle against it," Tian added.

But other facts were overlooked, he said.

"For example, China is the world's largest payer for copyright rights, for trademark rights, for royalties, and one of the largest for buying real software," he said.

"We pay the most. People rarely talk about this, but it really is a fact. Our government offices, our banks, our insurance companies, our firms, the software is all real."

Tian also said that if companies like Apple Inc were so worried by piracy they would never choose China for their production bases.

Posted by James Fried on Monday November 12 2012, 2:37 AM EST. Ref: CNN. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0