Piracy in China a Difficult Battle

22 Nov, 2011 By: Chris Tribbey

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BEIJING — Hu is a 24-year-old production assistant for a Chinese documentary film company — she uses a pseudonym to protect her identity. Despite her industry, even she admits to the occasional piracy of films — occasional being two to three times a week.

“I usually watch movies online — because it's free,” she said matter-of-factly. “There are so many free websites to watch movies in China.

“Yes I do buy movies. Because I do want to collect the movies that I love. But I don't rent.”

And when she does buy DVDs, they’re all of the pirated variety, she said, because they’re “very cheap, very easy to find.”

“It’s too easy [to buy pirated DVD] in China,” agreed Chén, a 20-something Shanghai resident who asked that his real name not be used. “Everything I want is out there.” And he buys everything he wants, with no worries about what it costs the industry on the other side of the Pacific.

Rampant piracy in China is a problem due to a combination of restrictions in some places and a lack of them elsewhere, according to Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA. With China restricting foreign blockbusters to about 20 a year, residents have no choice but to go elsewhere for content, and with China’s stance on intellectual property notoriously loose, any bootleg is available much too easily, he said.

The United States government estimates that in 2009, the commercial value of unlicensed software in China exceeded $7.5 billion.

“China poses some serious threats [to Hollywood],” Dodd told Home Media Magazine. “If you go down the streets of Shanghai and Beijing, every new TV show is already pirated on DVD.”

And online piracy may present a bigger problem. Dodd shared a story about watching a premiere of 20^th Century Fox’s Rio in his home state Connecticut.

“[Four days later] it was in 22 different languages across the world,” he said. “Thieves don’t discriminate. In China they just don’t see any harm in this at all.”

However, there’s been movement on many fronts this year to rein in online piracy and physical DVD bootlegs in China, most recently Nov. 21 with the United States and China announcing a new Chinese, state-run department that will “lead and coordinate intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement across China.”

“For the first time, China will establish a permanent leadership structure to enforce intellectual property rights,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce John Bryson said in a statement. “As enforcement becomes effective, those who infringe will no longer be able to lay low until a crackdown is over and then simply resume their illegal activities.”

That announcement came more than a week after President Obama pressed China over piracy at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation [APEC] summit in Honolulu.

“[Regarding] intellectual property rights and protections, companies that do business in China consistently report problems in terms of intellectual property not being protected,” Obama told reporters Nov. 14, according to a Time Magazine transcript. “Now, that’s particularly important for an advanced economy like ours, where that’s one of our competitive advantages, is we’ve got great engineers, great entrepreneurs, we’re designing extraordinary new products.

“And if they get no protection and the next thing you know China is operating as a low-cost producer and not paying any fees or revenues to folks who invented these products, that’s a problem.”

On Nov. 12, APEC leaders endorsed guidelines regarding the enforcement against camcording in theaters, a major source of illegal films worldwide, a move praised by the MPAA.

“I fully agree with the Ministers’ assessment that unauthorized camcording is a serious economic problem affecting the Asia Pacific region,” Dodd said. “We look forward to working with APEC economies to implement the best practices.”

In the United States, the industry is hoping Congress will pass the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that would allow the U.S. government to take action against foreign websites and illegal cyberlockers that traffic in illegal content. And back in May, the World Trade Organization upheld a ruling against China’s limits for foreign films in the country, a ruling China has said it would abide by.

But even if everything goes Hollywood’s way in terms of reigning back piracy in China, Chinese residents, especially the younger set, say they have few plans on buying or renting the legal way.

“Why? Everything is available on the Internet,” said Genny, a 20-something graphic designer and Hong Kong native, who asked that her real name not be used. “There needs to be more available [in theaters] here,” she agreed. “But it’s all free on the Internet.”

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