Entertainment news publication Variety notes that the Chinese government is once again asking for some leniency over current US efforts [1, 2] to obtain stronger IP compliance from China in the WTO. China claims that production lines are being smuggled into the country [!] by local gangs [!!] who often operate from caves [!!!] It sounds a bit too James Bond-meets-Tora Bora-ish, but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. It also raises questions as to why, if these things are true, China is lax on border control and keeping gang activity in check. I have previously ventured that software bandits are elusive, but I had no inkling that they were this elusive. What matters, ultimately, is whether China's American interlocutors are satisfied with these rather colorful explanations:Most of the production lines for pirated DVDs are smuggled into China, law enforcement officials said, and are difficult to find once they are in the country as they are run by local gangs and often hidden in caves.
“Illegal production lines are the source of pirated discs and to seize these lines can effectively wipe out pirated discs in China,” police official Xu Hu told the Xinhua news agency.
However, most of the production lines are smuggled in from abroad, making them difficult to trace. “Some are using edge-cutting technologies. The lines are clustered in the developed coastal regions of China and most are hidden in dark rooms and even caves,” said Xu.
Xu said criminal gangs controlled the production. The police had scored some successes, shutting down 231 fake DVD production lines since 1996 which had the total capacity to make 220 million discs annually. The latest Hollywood movies are easily available on the streets of the major cities, either from hawkers or from stores, for just over $1 each.
Washington filed formal complaints with the WTO over copyright piracy and restrictions on the sale of US movies, music and books in China in April and the issue is a major sticking point in relations between the US and China. Hollywood reckons piracy costs over $6 billion a year, much of it in the Asia-Pacific region.
