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Business News Legal
China says 4000 arrested in piracy crackdown
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 12 January 2011
Chinese officials say they have arrested 4000 people in relation to 2000 separate cases of intellectual property infringement since last November. Gao Feng, Deputy Director of China’s Ministry Of Public Security’s Economic Crimes Investigation Bureau told reporters that over twice as many cases if IP theft had been investigated since November, when the Chinese government stepped up its efforts to fight commercial piracy operations.
IP piracy of all kinds have always been rampant in China, of course, and the better protection of copyright, patents and suchlike is a frequent topic for discussion in any trade talks between the Chinese government and Western countries. It is thought such things will be on the agenda when Chinese president Hu Jintao visits the US next week, which might explain the timing of Feng’s press conference to big up the country’s recent efforts in cracking down on piracy.
He told reporters: “On one hand [these figures] demonstrate the achievements we’ve made in cracking down on the violation of IP, on the other hand it also indicates that IP violation is still quite rampant and frequent. So we want to introduce heavier punishments”.
Although the US government has welcomed recent anti-piracy initiatives in China, American officials say they want to see ongoing efforts to protect IP rights rather than occasional crack downs. And given that Feng reckons the value of the pirated goods seized in the recent crack down are worth $348 million, while the US reckons American IP industries alone lose $3.5 billion a year to Chinese piracy, presumably Western officials will be looking for even more action from China in this domain.
