Hollywood urges China reforms before Olympics
An interesting news article about China’s digital media situation.
Some interesting snippets from the article:
“I would like to plant this challenge: by 2008, to have more
legal than illegal DVDs sold in China, to have more American
movies in Chinese theaters and to have more Chinese movies in
American theaters,” says Dan Glickman, CEO of the MPAA.“It is virtually impossible to find counterfeit Olympics
goods in China. Why? As one of the Chinese officials said, it
is because fakes dilute the value of the logo, the intellectual
property upon which the Chinese have invested to finance the
games,” he continues.
A decrease in piracy from 90% to 50% is a four fold change. This may be difficult to achieve considering the evolving technologies that make filesharing easier, and pervasive broadband access that makes it faster.
Eric Priest
December 14, 2005 @ 1:06 pm
One thing I find interesting about comments like these–and the film/music industries have made them for years–is that they posit one example in isolation (here, the protection of a single government-owned olympic logo), and suggest that if the government can protect this logo it can protect all the myriad films and trademarks out there. First, it’s obviously much easier to protect one logo than all trademarks and copyrighted works; second, it’s simply unrealistic to try to compare the Chinese government’s ability/desire to protect it’s own trademark with it’s ability/desire to protect the intellectual property of foreigners. I’m not being an apologist for the Chinese government; but we’ve been hearing this rhetoric for years from the US and it accomplishes nothing. If the US entertainment industries want to see change they need to spend their energy seeking and employing innovative solutions–not perpetuating tired rhetoric and veiled threats. Glickman touches on one reason why these comments fall on deaf ears in Beijing: he suggests that by 2008 he would like to “have more American movies in Chinese theaters” and then tacks on “and have more Chinese movies in American theaters.” It’s obvious to the Chinese what a one-way street the US demands are: raise your hand if you really think US movie theaters will feature more Chinese cinema in 2008 (and I’m not talking about the occasional kung-fu flick)?