Chinese watchdog head slams abuse of copyright disputes

MOSCOW, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) -- A senior official of Chinese copyright watchdog slammed here on Tuesday the abuse of copyright disputes by some countries and opposed to the allegation of poor protection over copyright in China and Russia.

"Copyright protection is an important issue in world economy and its improvement needs efforts from all countries," said Liu Binjie, director of the General Administration of Press and Publication and the National Copyright Administration.

China has joined the World Trade Organization and all the relevant protocols on copyright protection. It has also joined another protocol on intellectual property rights (IPR) protection in cyber world this year, Liu told a press conference.

"All of these indicated that the protection of copyright in China has been put on legal basis and is open to international cooperation," he said, noting China will further crack down on the piracy of audio-video discs.

Six Hollywood film companies, including the Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., have on Monday won lawsuits against a Chinese firm, which was accused of selling pirated copies of their movies.

The U.S. studios have been awarded a total of 192,000 yuan (24,600 U.S. dollars) in compensation, the Beijing Xicheng District People's Court has ruled.

The United States has earlier this year placed 12 countries on an annual "priority watch list" for allegedly failing to provide adequate IPR protections, which included China and Russia.

China, however, has intensified the crackdown on pirated DVDs and other illegal publications, and plans to bring about fundamental changes to the situation this year, according to a circular jointly issued by six government departments, including the public security and culture ministries.

China confiscated around 110 million illegal CDs and DVDs in 2006, according to the Ministry of Culture.

From 1994 to 2005, China confiscated 1.5 billion illegal publications, including pirated discs and pornographic DVDs. More than 40,000 illegal printing houses and 221 production lines were closed down.

The Supreme People's Court issued a new judicial interpretation earlier this year to lower the threshold for prosecuting manufacturers and vendors of counterfeit intellectual property products.

It said anyone who manufactured 500 or more counterfeit copies (discs) of computer software, music, movies, TV shows and other audio-video products could be prosecuted and faced a prison term of up to three years.