China's top court has stepped up the fight against intellectual
piracy by lowering the threshold to prosecute people who
manufacture or sell counterfeit intellectual property products.
A new judicial interpretation issued by the Supreme People's
Court on Thursday states that anyone who manufactures 500 or more
counterfeit copies of computer software, music, movies, TV series,
or other audio-video products can be prosecuted and sentenced to a
prison term of up to three years.
Despite repeated police raids, hawkers of pirated discs
re-emerge on Chinese streets as soon as an anti-piracy campaign
begins to ebb.
The piracy issue has been a sore point in China-US trade
relations and the latest judicial change comes among a chorus of
overseas complaints that the country is too lenient with IPR
violators.
According to judicial sources, courts around China settled
17,769 IPR protection cases in 2006. However, most of these were
civil cases, with only 2,277 criminal prosecutions resulting in
3,508 convictions.
The new rules, jointly prepared by the Supreme People's Court
and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, also widen the definition
of a "serious IPR offender" so that anyone who produces more than
2,500 counterfeit copies can now be thrown into jail for up to
seven years.
The rules are effective immediately, the top court said. They
replace the 2004 rules, which only applied to violators who
produced 1,000 pirated discs and defined "serious offenders" as
those who produced over 5,000 copies.
Critics expect a new surge of IPR cases in Chinese courts now
that the new rules have come into effect. They constitute a stern
warning to pirates that the government will not go soft on IPR
infringement.
Sources with the Supreme People's Court said they made the
change in order to deal with "new problems" in the crackdown on
piracy.
"The courts will extend the protection of intellectual property
rights and play to the full their role in punishing infringers and
preventing crimes," a court spokesman said.
To fight rampant piracy, China lowered the counterfeit product
threshold in 2004. Official statistics show that IPR cases that
came to court in China rose 28 percent in 2005, the first year of
the new rules.
That year, a total of 3,567 cases concerning the manufacture of
fake products and illegal sales of pirated products went to
criminal courts.
Courts have also been instructed to raise fines for convicted
counterfeiters. "Fines can range from one to 15 times the illegal
gains, or from 50 to 200 percent of the business turnover,"
according to the new judicial interpretation.
This will be welcome news to those who complain that monetary
punishments for piracy violators are too low and that "the cost of
IPR crime" remains low.
In January, the top court issued a notice ordering stricter
penalties for IPR violators, saying "all illegal gains and
manufacturing tools of IPR violators should be confiscated and
their pirated products destroyed."
The new rules also tighten the rules on the granting of
probation.
In another measure to cast the anti-piracy net wider, the top
court has instructed IPR criminal courts to accept litigation cases
filed by individual piracy victims, in addition to those filed by
procurators.
The judicial change came as the state announced big seizures of
pirated products and said it plans to improve the transparency of
IPR trials by allowing foreigners to observe.
Envoys of foreign governments and representatives of
international organizations will be allowed to attend IPR trials if
they wish, said Jiang Zengwei of the State Office of Intellectual
Property Protection on Wednesday.
This will be the first time overseas representatives have been
allowed to attend public IPR trials, an official from the top court
told Xinhua.
Major trials will be publicized in the media.
Meanwhile, in the largest single crackdown on CD and DVD piracy
in China's history, more than 1.81 million pirated CDs and DVDs
were seized in a production factory in Guangzhou, capital of south
China's Guangdong Province on March 17, the government
announced on Tuesday.
Thirty production machines in 11 warehouses were confiscated and
13 people arrested in the case.
A circular from the ministry said the continued fight against
piracy is still an arduous task, and should be a priority for
public security departments nationwide.
The government has launched a "spring campaign" against illegal
and pirated publications that will last until May.
People providing information about piracy crimes that lead to
convictions will be offered rewards by the police.
(Xinhua News Agency April 6, 2007)
