Now that we've moved into the dangerous territory of copyright law, let's continue the theme. Two US lawmakers have launched a proactive campaign to encourage authorities in Russia and
China to take a more hardline stance on copyright theft and piracy. Senators Richard Lugar and Max Baucus used Tuesday's status as World Intellectual Property Day to call for a global effort to achieve "effective remedies and solutions in addressing the lack of intellectual property protection in China and Russia". The politicians reckon the US economy loses
$4 billion annually because of the manufacture and distribution of illegal music, film and software in the two countries.
The need to tackle piracy in both China and Russia is important for two key reasons. Firstly both countries act as the production house for a lot of pirated material sold in the West. The fear is that this situation will worsen as companies based in China and Russia are able to sell directly to consumers through the internet. Certainly Russian download site allofmp3.com, with its cheap rates and questionable royalty payment system, has caused much concern in the music industry because of its global reach and the Russian authorities failure to do anything about the website, despite being made aware of the global industry's concerns via the **International Federation of the Phonographic
Industry**. But secondly, Russia and in particular China offer major areas for economic expansion for the major record labels, but that is only going to be possible if each country's domestic piracy problem is brought under control.
The consensus is that China is likely to be more helpful than Russia in the fight against piracy - Chinese authorities did recently prosecute two Americans who were illegally duplicating and distributing
CDs and DVDs there. However Baucus hopes Russia can also be persuaded to act by including piracy reform into the conditions for their entry into the World Trade Organisation.