China complains imported pirate discs tarnishing their image

April 16, 2004

China is often criticised from abroad for
trampling on artists copyrights. However, China says it is not them doing all
the pirating, in fact, they say they are an innocent victim much of the time.
It's their neighbors that can't seem to stop sending the copies their
way. They say they can't stop the flow through their porous borders and
are doing what they can to stop the influx.

Hundreds of millions of fake CDs enter the
country across its porous borders, winding up in Chinese shops and hurting
its reputation abroad, according to Wang Ziqiang, spokesman of the
National Copyright Administration.

"China is the largest victim of pirated CDs,"
he told a briefing in Beijing. "Such activities jeopardize the Chinese
economy, hurt our tax revenue and also jeopardize the Chinese image in
front of the world."

He said that in the period since 1996 Chinese
customs have confiscated a total of 300 million pirated CDs, "the vast
majority" of them coming from abroad.

State media reported previously that
smugglers often transport 4 million CDs at a time on board cargo ships,
ensuring that Chinese audiences can enjoy all the latest movies and music.

In a major recent case, police in southern
Guangdong province confiscated 4.77 million smuggled discs.

Wang said the CDs probably originate in
neighboring countries but declined to identify
them.

Maybe the first step in cleaning up the the image
over in China would be to stop the production of the "super corrective" DVD
players specifically designed to play these oft defective discs.

Source: Taipei Times