Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) violations cannot be
eliminated overnight but China will speed up the process a top
copyright official pledged yesterday in Beijing.
The government has been resolute and made headway in cracking
down on the piracy of laser discs and software, said Yan Xiaohong,
deputy chief of the National Copyright Administration of China.
"For a developing nation like China protecting IPR is a
process," he explained to the press conference. "We hope to shorten
that process as much as possible but it's difficult to eliminate
this problem overnight," he said.
To ensure serious IPR offenders face criminal penalties instead
of just administrative fines, China has made it mandatory for
law-enforcers to transfer such offences to the judicial authorities
in a timely fashion, Zhu Xiaoqing, deputy procurator-general of the
Supreme People's Procuratorate, said yesterday.
The combination of administrative punishment and criminal
penalties had allowed copyright law-enforcement agencies to strike
hard at the pirates, Yan said.
Last year these agencies transferred 18 major Internet copyright
infringement cases to judicial departments, according to Yan.
Since 1996 China has broken up 223 illegal laser disc production
lines with six of those being stopped this year alone, he said.
The government?is offering rewards of up to 300,000 yuan
(US$37,000) for tip-offs which lead to the exposure of any
underground production lines, said Yan.?
During a recent investigation of half of the country's disc
manufacturers, authorities revoked the licenses of six companies
and halted the production of eight more. These included one in
southwest China's Chongqing Municipality and another in
Beijing.
Visiting US Commerce Secretary, Carlos Gutierrez, said in a
speech at Chongqing University yesterday that widespread
counterfeiting was not only harming US companies but also posing a
threat to China's own long-term development.
Yan said China had destroyed 106 million pirated discs and books
last year alone which suggested the country's crackdown was having
an affect. However, at the same time there remained a serious
problem with piracy which needed to be stopped by using more
forceful and effective measures if necessary..
Yan also said that by the end of last year all Chinese
government departments were using authorized software.
The copyright agency, along with the ministries of information
industry and commerce, require computer manufacturers to
pre-install copyright operating systems and demand that Chinese
enterprises?use authentic products only.
Also speaking at yesterday's briefing, Zheng Shaodong, a
Ministry of Public Security official, said China wanted to
"strengthen cooperation with international authorities" in IPR
protection.
"We want to strike hard against international intellectual
property right infringements," Zheng said.
Chinese courts heard more than 3,500 criminal cases concerning
IPRs last year, police arrested 2,119 suspects for violations and
customs handled 1,210 cases of infringements.
(China Daily March 28, 2006)