Copyright, copywrong, humanity and piracy

Techdirt: It's Not China's Poor Copyright Laws That Fuel Piracy There

www.techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20070409/105456

Contributed by Carlo

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 @ 3:02AM Permalink to this story.

It's Not China's Poor Copyright Laws That Fuel Piracy There

from the untapped-demand dept

In one of its roles as proxy for Hollywood movie studios and record labels, the US government continually complains to China that it's not doing enough to stop piracy, and threatens it with the big stick of sanctions or other actions through the World Trade Organization. While these threats are usually just hot air, the US has now formally complained to the WTO, saying that Chinese laws don't live up to WTO commitments in the area of copyright protection and enforcement. But there's a second element to the complaint, which takes issue with China's heavy restrictions on the distribution of foreign content, including DVDs, CDs, books and other products. Where things get a little bit more interesting is that the original article in the Wall Street Journal, and indeed, movie studios and record labels themselves, gloss over the second part of the complaint -- when it illustrates beautifully how backwards big content thinks.

A graph in the article says that China and France are the two nations where the movie industry suffers its biggest losses due to piracy. While the dollar amounts cited are pretty certainly bogus, is it any coincidence that the movie industry sees those two countries as the biggest for piracy when they both feature some of the tightest restrictions on the distribution of foreign content? France is pretty famous for its efforts to keep American content out of its media market, while the Chinese government allows just 20 foreign films to be shown in the country's cinemas each year. It would be reasonable to deduce that it's a lack of legitimately available, attractive products that's driving the demand for pirated goods in these countries, rather than weak enforcement of copyrights. This mimics what goes on in other markets: the content industry fails to provide consumers with attractive products to purchase -- though it's generally because of poor strategy rather than government interference -- so they turn to pirated goods instead. The market for legitimate movie downloads probably provides the best illustration of this scenario. The products offered by legitimate, studio-backed sites are so heavily restricted and overpriced that nobody wants to buy them. The idea that content providers like movie studios don't understand this is reflected in the fact that they aren't pushing the government to attack China's 20-film limit, they just want to make its copyright laws more strict. It's just another indication of how the industry won't compete with free, while it protests that it simply can't. The failure in the market isn't a failure of the government to sufficiently protect copyright holders; it's a failure of those copyright holders to provide products and services that are attractive to consumers.

Reader Comments

1. A contradiction. by Terri on Apr 10th, 2007 @ 4:33am

   This makes no sense. If the copyright holders provide no content that users want, then why do the pirates sell so many bootleg copies of that self-same content?

2. Re: A contradiction. by MadJo on Apr 10th, 2007 @ 4:39am

   my first thought would be price. These bootlegged/"pirated" material is much friendlier priced than the original stuff.
   In a way consumers are already voting with their wallets. ;)

3. THis is dumb by Cleveland on Apr 10th, 2007 @ 4:43am

   This has got to be the worst written article ever!!
   I do agree that the gov't may be keep the film industry down on these countries. Therefore making their citizens turn to bootlegs, but that still is not an vaild reason to steal.

4. Re: A contradiction. by Anonymous Coward on Apr 10th, 2007 @ 4:51am

   The copyright holder want to provide the content. As it said in the story China and France drastically restrict the amount of content allowed. The demand is there and the supply isnt. Thats what is driving the piracy.

5. by [caiocesar] on Apr 10th, 2007 @ 4:53am

   I think this is not all true. Se the case of Brazil. It's a wide-open country, specially for foreign content. Even though it has a huge amount of pirated material being bought and sold on the streets of nearly every city.
   The real cause might be the high prices that the so called legal content arrives to stores' shelves...

6. It's True by ImaniOU on Apr 10th, 2007 @ 4:53am

   As an American who has been living in Taiwan for almost six years now, I can choose to either miss out on really good movies and television programs because although there are some foreign films and TV shows here, the only ones picked up are the ones that are extremely popular or do not rely on understanding the language. If it involves fart jokes, then it makes it. If it involves a lot of dialogue, then the companies here don't want to be bothered translating it so they just don't carry it. The law enforces everything has to be subtitled in Chinese, even Chinese-language media because of the different dialects all over the island. If it weren't for pirated movies and TV shows, I would be missing over half a decade of American pop culture. The quality of programming here sucks and anyone who wants more from entertainment than caricatures and bathroom humor is forced to seek out alternative means for getting it.

7. Yeah by Wolfger on Apr 10th, 2007 @ 4:57am

   That about sums it up. Most people are honest, and would rather pay to get something legitimate. Piracy stems from two sources: unavailability and unaffordability.

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Choppam responds:

Good article. The US govt is very self-serving in its trade policies, hates international agreements that thwart its greed and selfishness, and censors officials and scholars and scientists who disagree with it whenever it can. And it shills for the corporations like Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Money and Big ShowBiz. So it tries to put a lid on the reproduction and spread of useful ideas and creative art for the benefit of useless fat cats and uncreative boneheads.

Most people don't realize that the ability to easily and rapidly reproduce ideas and art (eg books, articles, music, shows, movies, prints, photos) is heralding an explosion in interaction and creative development among ALL human beings - that's the whole of humanity, every one of us. Regardless of borders, bureaucrats or bombs.

The reason why the corporations can't compete is that almost everybody hates them, and most people can't afford what they demand. So as soon as the useful and creative things they've stolen from humanity slip through the prison bars they try and put around them, then they find their way home - to humanity.

The oligarchy (rule by the few) and plutocracy (power of the rich) that is fomenting war and destruction today wants to corner every market it can smell out in order to charge exorbitant prices for necessary products. This system wants everybody to act like ignorant selfish money-worshipping brutes like themselves. Fortunately for us (humanity) most people puke at this idea and do what they can to stay human and share their joys and thoughts with each other. You can't make lives and ideas into private property.

Artists and scientists etc need to live. Most people that make up society realize this better than the fat cats and their governments. So let society organize a fair way to do this without the insanity of present-day copyright and patent litigation.

If big stealing (say the looting of Iraq's oil, or the slave contracts big recording companies force on most musicians, or the destruction of our air and water) is sanctioned by law and government, while small stealing is stigmatized and smeared, then the system needs to be turned on its head.

Meanwhile people will do what they have to do to feel themselves as a real part of humanity, with access to the latest and greatest productions of their fellow human beings.

Chomsky interview on C-Punch about war and empire

There's a good interview by Sameer Dossani with Noam Chomsky on CounterPunch about war, neo-liberalism and empire now:

http://www.counterpunch.org/dossani03092007.html

It makes good points about the differences between Asia, Latin America and Africa.

I felt a couple of things could have been brought out more clearly, though.

What Chomsky doesn't mention is the political power reason WHY the Asian countries could ignore IMF and US pressures and industrialize. Particularly Japan (the big one), Korea, and the other "tigers". It was a clear policy choice by the States to give them their head after the war, and let the local capitalists thrive. It was the only way to avoid a devastating series of social struggles encouraged by the defiant existence and growth of China and Vietnam that could have thrown imperialism out of the region. Not the same history of imperialist/colonialist domination as in Latin America and Africa (which Chomsky does point out, to great effect).

He also remains silent on the strategic revolutionary/socialist aspects of Cuba's international intervention(s). Its subordination to Moscow's Socialism in One Country nationalism etc.

He doesn't mention the changing class structure in India, with the wholesale extinction of the old mainly rural caste system and the creation of a modern urban working class. He describes impoverishment, but not proletarianization as a process. He describes the flight of millions whose land has been stolen from them into the cities to unemployment, but doesn't mention the class dynamic involved in this.

And he doesn't go into where Lula comes from and why he might be a good leftie (class betrayal running the errands of foreign capital and big local capital, instead of the working class that nurtured him), or where Chavez comes from and why he's a leftie at all (same kind of petty-bourgeois military base as Castro in the 50s, and same reliance as Castro on the support of the poor masses to withstand the attacks of imperialism). Of course, Castro had Moscow, but on the other hand, Chavez is deeply rooted in Venezuela itself, and in the military, and he now has control of oil rather than sugar. Serious democratic nationalism today is forced to head for socialism and internationalism if it wants to survive, it has no other choice except capitulation to imperialism. So in a way, Chavez is a throwback to the anti-colonial struggle in the age of imperialism :-) Not much of a model for other countries to follow in other words - but quite possibly an enabler of more working-class and contemporary socialist movements in other countries (maybe Bolivia, Ecuador, even Argentina) to seize the reins of power and move forward.

Interesting that he mentions Clinton but doesn't generalize on the strategic importance of his Latin American initiatives more. Clinton's policies re Mexico, re Colombia, and re Iraq all contributed more than anything the more aggressive Bush has done to undermine those countries and weaken them strategically. And we can expect a repeat performance if another soft-cop Clinton gets into the White House.