Copyright piracy in China remains at “unacceptably high levels,” causing “serious harm” to US businesses, the top US trade official said in an annual report to Congress on Tuesday.
US Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in the mandatory report on China’s compliance with its WTO accession obligations that Beijing was not taking adequate measures to enforce intellectual property rights laws.
He said enforcement of China’s copyright protection “remains a significant challenge.”
The report cited other “priority” issues such as industrial policies, trading rights and distribution services, agriculture and services, but indicated piracy is a key issue where China has made little progress.
“Despite repeated anti-piracy campaigns in China and an increasing number of civil IPR [intellectual property rights] cases in Chinese courts, counterfeiting and piracy remain at unacceptably high levels and continue to cause serious harm to US businesses across many sectors of the economy,” the 121-page report said.
The US copyright industries estimate that losses last year because of piracy were about US$3.5 billion for the music recording and software industries alone, it said.
“These figures indicate little or no overall improvement over the previous year,” it said.
China is among nations in the annual intellectual property rights blacklist of the US Trade Representative’s office.
China acceded to the WTO eight years ago. The terms of its accession called for China to implement numerous specific commitments over time. All of China’s key commitments should have been phased in by Dec. 11, 2006.
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