The Thomas Chronicles

Feb 19 2007

China tightens its grips

Published by Thomas at 8:00 am under Technology, China Watch

On February 7th, Reuters reported that China is finally cracking down on Internet piracy. It is well-known that China is the largest source of movie and music piracy for over a decade. Anyone venturing down to Chinatown in New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles would be treated to a buffet of pirated movies (some not even released into the movie theaters yet) for the amazingly low price of 15 clams or less.

Normally, one imagines that China’s crackdown on piracy is beneficial and would take it as a sign that China is finally maturing in its respect for intellectual property rights. The author of this Reuters’ article seems to believe so.

China boasts that it investigated 436 cases between September and January with the imposition of fines totaling 705,000 yuan, the equivalent of $91,000. Six of these cases were remanded to court for prosecution, and only “[o]ne of those had led to a conviction”.

By any standard of measurement, China’s actions could only be interpreted as a token gesture, hardly even worth mentioning given the millions of pirated materials– perhaps even tens of millions– that yearly flows from China’s shores.

Reuters reports, “Pirated music, movies and software are sold openly on Chinese streets, a major irritant in trade relations with the United States.” Apparently, whoever wrote this article never took a stroll through New York’s Chinatown and haggled with sidewalk merchants. If he had, he’d notice all the “pirated, movies and software” being sold right on the streets of America– all imported from China and/or from their Chinese sweat-shop equivalent here in the States.

Given all of China’s tools for controlling Internet content, the most famous being Google’s totalitarian friendly Internet software, China could have shut these sites down with very little difficulty at any time. So, what’s the difference between now and then? Why do even this token gesture, which, of course, at the end of the day didn’t even so much as dent the illegal piracy issue?

Reuters also reports that “in one case, all the Internet cafes in Changchun, in the country’s northeast, were found to be linked into a database of pirated films.”

They’re targeting and sifting information flowing through Internet cafes? Is it just coincidence that people who oppose the Chinese communist party communicate with each other through Internet cafes? This token to end piracy offered to Westerners isn’t even a token. Perhaps they’re just doing what they do best— suppressing dissent, which reminds me of what Goering once said, “Please show me a ‘no man’ in Germany who is not six feet under the ground today.”

If this paltry maneuver is supposed to prove that China is ready to join the ranks of responsible nations, then perhaps China holds a really low opinion of the rest of the world.

In this crackdown, one thing is beyond doubt. China is not very serious in halting piracy. Why should they? All industrial nations of the world have made China their darling and no one has really held China’s feet to the fire for all the theft they’ve done to all our industries, intellectual or otherwise.

So next time you get a hankering to watch a newly released movie, why pay the $10 to a crowded movie theater when you can take a leisurely stroll to Chinatown and own the movie for roughly the same price?

Compliments of China.

Update 2/19/07 9:53 a.m.

I was referred to this video from The Politicker.

Yes, this is the same country that manufactures our shoes, our toys, our needful things… and they are almost prepared to mount challenge to us for control of the Western Pacific.

They are already conducting a full-scale cyberwar with us…

Previous Post:

A Larger Military