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China, Russia worst pirates: US lawmakers

A group of US legislators on Wednesday named China and Russia as the worst pirates of US movies, music and software and said Moscow should be denied WTO membership until it does more to end the theft.

China and Russia together were responsible for US$4 billion in US business losses last year due to illegal copies of copyrighted material, according to the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus, a bipartisan group.

Piracy has also cost the US an estimated 150,000 jobs and US$1 billion in lost tax revenue, said Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat and member of the group.

"Piracy in these countries is largely the result of a lack of political will to confront the problem," the group said in a statement.

For Russia the stakes may be high. The Bush administration, in addition to demanding that Moscow crack down on rampant video and software piracy, also wants Russia to open its financial sector to foreign banks as part of WTO membership. Moscow cannot join the global trade club without the backing of all existing members such as the US.

The group of US lawmakers said Moscow's proposed changes to intellectual property rights (IPR) law are "moving Russia even farther away from WTO compliance."

Biden described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "dunce" for failing to protect intellectual property. Global leaders do not understand that "this also stymies their own abilities" to develop intellectual property-based economies, he said.

"As one who voted for WTO for China, I feel burned," said Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican. "China had pledged to protect intellectual property. My own view on Russia is I'm not going to burned twice."

The caucus leaders from the House of Representatives, Bob Goodlatte, a Republican, and Adam Schiff, a Democrat, introduced a nonbinding resolution on Wednesday urging the US not to complete agreements leading to Russian WTO membership until Moscow enforces anti-piracy laws.

Many of the Russian facilities capable of producing pirated materials are on military-owned property, protecting them from international scrutiny, the lawmakers said.

Russia is the home for Web site allofmp3.com, which the congressional group described as one of the world's largest online music pirates.

China, which was admitted to the WTO in 2001, was responsible for US$2.3 billion in US piracy losses last year, the legislators said.

While Chinese authorities are raiding illegal production facilities, violators face relatively small penalties. The lawmakers urged Beijing to destroy production equipment and boost penalties.

The congressional group also named Mexico, Canada, India and Malaysia as countries on its watch list that must do more to stop violations of US copyrights.

Putin's lack of action on copyright protection was also criticized on Wednesday by Deputy Secretary of Commerce David Sampson on the sidelines of a conference on Russia at the Center for Strategic and International Studie.

"The Russian president makes very strong statements about the importance of intellectual property rights protection," Sampson told reporters in Washington.

"But ... there has to be more than a slap on the wrist whenever pirates and counterfeiters are raided or adjudicated in the court system," he said.
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