Best IP Protection is Through Education, Not More Enforcement Actions
Introduction
It is beyond dispute that China has some of the most comprehensive and up-to-date Intellectual Property (IP) protection laws of any country in the modern world, in conformance with its accession to the Berne Convention and the Geneva Convention.1 This is a direct result of China’s serious fourteen-year pursuit of World Trade Organization membership and compliance with its WTO obligations.2
On October 27, 2001, China promulgated the amendment to its PRC, Copyright Law of 1990 (the Copyright Law). The amendment came into effect upon its promulgation. The purpose of this amendment was to bring China’s copyright protection to full compliance with relevant international conventions. It seems more than coincidental that the amendment was promulgated one week before China signed its WTO accession documents; the amendment was issued in all likelihood to prove that China is making efforts to honour its WTO commitments.”3
China acknowledges that its own IT sector is retarded due to lack of transfer of foreign technology and lack of foreign investment, both caused by lack of foreigners’ belief in IP protection in China.4 China has ratcheted up IP enforcement with record numbers of prosecutions in all provinces and semi-autonomous regions, because China sees this as being in its own economic best interests. Yet, organizations like AmCham assert that while such enforcement actions are laudable, they fall far short and suggest that the situation is getting worse, not better.5 The Asia-Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce asserts, “Aggressive enforcement of intellectual property rights will benefit both consumers and businesses. Encouraging the enforcement of IPR rights will allow U.S. companies to reap the benefits of their investments, and will also encourage additional businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises, to participate in the global marketplace.”6
This myopic world-view taken from a “business only” perspective ignores the most fundamental principles of Globalization, cultural diversity appreciation and understanding. For five thousand years the Chinese have had no concept of private intellectual property rights. Under the Emperor Dynasties and more recently the Socialist Economic System, the government owns all real and personal property, including celebrity endorsements.7
1.3 billion people cannot be expected to embrace such a foreign concept over night. IP protection is brand new (last 20 years) and the basic change in recognizing private ownership of IP is hard to teach and hard to accept. Only 53 percent of the people even speak Mandarin8 and more than 8.72 percent are illiterate.9 That is one-hundred thirteen million illiterates in China. An entire society needs to be taught about the value of private ownership of intellectual property. This educational process must begin at China’s universities where libraries allow and even encourage wholesale copying of entire books.
Under the socialist economic system the government owned the books (copyrights were non-existent) and the people are the government. So, the people copy what they already own and thus are not stealing anything from anyone. This practice continues to this day. Chinese libraries still allow this practice to continue unabated without even a cursory check to see if the book has an ISBN number.The Chinese universities are the Research and Development labs for China and yet 75 percent of them fail to patent their own inventions.10 India is as adept at copying China’s non-patented pharmaceuticals as China is at copying America’s copyrighted DVDs.11
Chinese people understand that it is wrong to steal tangible goods but there is no concept that taking IP without compensation is wrong. Intangible thoughts and ideas have no reality as something that is subject to theft, even when they are reduced to a writing or artwork. On any given day, in any given Chinese bookstore, there are more people sitting on the bare floor stealing IP (reading books for free) than patrons in the local library. Even the bookstores encourage IP theft. There are no signs prohibiting free reading and no enforcement of such a “foreign” idea. The people know that they cannot take the book out of the store without paying for it, but they do not understand that their act of reading it without compensation also constitutes a theft. A major Shanghai university teaches IP protection using a Prentice Hall book, copied in violation of the copyright laws. This university has a teacher stand in front of the class and teach that it is wrong to steal IP while teaching from a stolen textbook. This is hypocritical and sends the wrong message to the students who are the next generation of business and government leaders. The universities must teach, not just preach, IP protection and they must implement what they teach. China’s universities are teaching the next generation of political and business leaders, as well as the next generation of teachers. Education is the fundamental key to change, not enhanced enforcement actions.
Increasing IP enforcement actions tenfold will not accomplish the desired transformation of Chinese thinking and attitude towards IP ownership and protection. This can only be accomplished through proper education, not hypocritical half-hearted educational efforts. It is no easy task to bring such fundamental change to the thinking of 1.3 billion Chinese people. It requires a psychological revolution of unprecedented proportions to create a new ethos where none has existed before. Enforcement actions undoubtedly have an effect on those successfully prosecuted but to assume a deterrent effect that will sweep throughout China’s society is to continue to believe that capital punishment deters murder or other serious crimes.
- Chen Chao (2001). China Amends Copyright Law, Retrieved from http://www.china.org.cn/english/2001/Nov/22246.htm ↩
- Olson, E. (2001). WTO Sets Date to Discuss China’s Entry, New York Times November 14, 2000. Retrieved from http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/wto/2000/1114eo.htm ↩
- Wang, V, and Cai, R. (2001). New Changes to Copyright Protection in China Retrieved from http://www.dwt.com/practc/sha_chi/bulletins/10-01_copyright.htm ↩
- China Daily (2004). Piracy still plagues China’s IT industry. Retrieved from http://english.people.com.cn/200406/30/eng20040630_148091.html ↩
- American Chamber of Commerce (2004). White Paper – Intellectual Property Rights. Retrieved from http://www.amcham-china.org.cn/amcham/show/content.php?Id=332 ↩
- Asia-Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce (2005). Intellectual property Rights – Position Paper. Retrieved fromhttp://www.apcac.org/?id=47 ↩
- Falk, J. (2005). Yao Ming vs. Coca Cola. A Professional Athlete’s Right to Publicity in China. Retrieved fromhttp://www.iln.com/2004_newsletter/may/na_epstein _becker.htm ↩
- People’s Daily On Line (2005). Greater numbers speak Mandarin. Retrieved from http://english.people.com.cn/200412/27/eng20041227_168739.html ↩
- People’s Daily On Line (2005). Illiteracy Rate Among Adult People in China Slashed http://english.people.com.cn/200412/27/eng20041227_168739.html ↩
- China Education and Research Network. (2005). 75% of Chinese Universities Need Patent Application. Retrieved fromhttp://www.edu.cn/20050617/3141159.shtml ↩
- Taipei Times (2004). India accedes to pressure over generic drugs. Retrieved from http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worldbiz/archives/2004/12/27/2003216955 ↩
As the development of the industry of information, nowadays how to protect our information is become a very important thing in our country. But I think most Chinese people have little concept of IP protection. I don’t even know that book about how to protect our computer information in book store. I think Intellectual Property protection is a kind of respect to original composers. Now we just download many things as we can, and we don’t care these information is safe or not. However, every time we download a movie or video or copy a passage, we don’t know how to protect our IP protection. We are showing disrespect to the original creator. So our government should pay more attention to these, and I am sure our country will do something to change the phenomenon gradually, but it maybe need a long time to overcome these things. And I wish one day people in China will recognize the importance to protect IP and do these things consciously.
Professor thinks that best IP Protection is through education ,but I think through the law is also effective. In China Piracy is very common , maybe in other Nations also have this behave , I think this problem is not the education , frankly speaking ,I usually buy some piratical things ,just I am a pure consumer , the original binding things are very exorbitant price , the piratical things have the some function ,so the piracy is popular , but we should protect the legal cope .respect the value ,maybe the market of transaction can be healthfully and fairly .
IP protraction is a serious problem in china. First, most of people do not aware the existence of IP in the world. It is difficult task to let all the people know the rights that they have and also they should respect. Second, even for the people who know the IP, some of them also do not respect the IP for some reasons. You know, one of the most serious infringements of IP happen in the software industry. Most of the people who use the pirated software has received good education. They know what they do impinge the rights of others. I think the most important reason for them is profit. The price of genuine software is much higher than the pirated one. And usually it is a litter expensive. So maybe when the economy has a progress, and the people accept a good education about the IP, this problem can be solved.
Piracy is a very common phenomenon in China.I have also the same feeling.Just like the tearcher said in above article, China is at copying America’s copyrighted DVDs.In my opinion,the reason for piracy maybe existing lots of disfigurements in our Copyright Law .According to some people saying, what we did for the protection of intellectual property rights are untouchability other west countries.So we have lots of things to do to establish the sound law of protection intellectual property rights. “ Chinese people understand that it is wrong to steal tangible goods but there is no concept that taking IP without compensation is wrong.” I agree with the teacher”s idea.Sometimes what we made mistakes is because we were not aware of its wrong.So it is important for us to have concept of IP protection.
It’s a really important and serious matter in china. There is still a long way to go for us about IP protection, but we have to go now. When I studied in senior high school, our school required us to buy a lot of extra-curricular books. But all the books were copied by a publisher. I didn’t know why. Maybe it’s to save our money or earn more money for them. Who knows. In the campus, it happens frequently in the duplicating room. Nowadays, internet resource is so widely and popular, we should pay more attention on IP protection. Most of people don’t have the concept of IP protection. So education can change our mind. It’s a fundamental way.
This article really shocked me when I was reading Best IP Protection. Because I am exactly one of the persons who are ignorant of the importance about intellectual property protection. For example, I don’t like to upload any of my articles or essays on the website, for the afraid of anybody could copy it if they have a mind to. What is worse, I have no idea to avoid the action. So I really agree with Martin about the saying,” Best IP Protection is through education, not more enforcement actions”.
On the one hand, legislations were built while there are some deficiencies in the society, but it was a little late to enforce protection. The other, there are still amount of citizens take less care about the IP protection though our government had brought many regulations. So, it is necessary to execute IP protection by education.
It is all right that take our action to protect IP, but I don’t agree that best IP protection is through education, not more enforcement actions. In contrast, I prefer to believe that putting severe enforcement measure to engage ourselves to obey the related rules and laws. In China, there are some words tell that nothing can be accomplished without norms or standard. What’s more, Chinese have been accustomed to use everything without any payment so it is hard to take a short time to change their behavior formed for a long time. Worsely, the Chinese law system is not so perfect that some people can find out any other way to enjoy the IP of someone else. Everything turn out that it is necessary to consummate our law institute for IP protection is very good at letting out our respect to these people who are absorbing in innovation and promoting our country to make a progress in every division.
As the communication among the countries get more, we Chinese improve ourselves more. But we could not be perfect at once. Exposure our problems, try to solve it, then we can make progress. There is a problem that china has a large population，so it is difficult to make all the people keep the same steps. When few people did wrong, yet, they are known as Chinese. It is unequal for china get bad reputation in the world just because of few people did bad things . But as the ones who get the high education, we must do our best to learn the useful things, told the publics.
There is also a problem, when a organization research something，the relative knowledge is shared by themselves, they donot want to change ideas with others. They permit others know when they publiced. It made us wait too long. In my opinion, this make the technology improve slowly. “Best intellectual property Protection is Through Education, Not More Enforcement Actions ”is really right, so that we can trust each other more. And we can get balance between communications with others and keep secret from others，so that we can compete in harmony.
China is a developing country, and every system in this country is not perfect, our law system, our education system and vice versa. From all of these imperfect things, one thing I need to point out is our library system. Chinese people read books in a book store but not in a library. Why? Sometimes I find this phenomenon really ridicules. Few people in the city (in China only big city can have big library) choose to have a library card, spend only 50 yuan each year to read books in a very big and modern library, but choose read in a store, nerves, worrying whether the book store workers come and say go away. In my hometown I go to library and the workers there very happy to see me. If I need a book or need the workers help me, they are very happy to finally have a work to do!! Our country spends so much money on the city library system, but the citizens do not use it! Who’s wrong?
Teachers steal textbooks from other countries like America, because the textbooks are better. Why they are better? Because they can get their hard work reasonable paid. Where do they get the payment? From well-educated citizens who know that they should pay, even when they only read one chapter from the book. But we Chinese don’t know. Time is need before all Chinese know this.but we should hurry up. Too long a time may disappoint geniuses who wish to make money from writing good books.
Honestly speaking, copying is very common in China, especially among the undergraduate students. They copy the homework from classmates. They copy the essay from the internet without showing quoting. They even copy the thesis when graduating from the university. Students haven’t realized the importance of IP protection. That may bring in a big problem. It is a problem about cheating. It is not allowed.
IP
I think I mostly agree with you. In most aspects, when we use pirate books or software, we do not think we are stealing IP from others. Because we do not have such a concept–IP in our mind. I think it is really a big problem we are facing now, we really need some methods to solve it. But we have to admit it is not a easy subject. It is not easy to a person to change the concept which has been in his mind for many years. I know I can’t do that. So what about to others do not take much education? Maybe the article is right, we need education to change this situation, to solve this difficult problem. But I hope we can find some new way to solve. Maybe law is a good media.
The violation of intellectual property rights has become a serious problem facing China today. We always violate IP knowingly or unknowingly. The former mainly caused by people’s selfishness, the latter mainly caused by the lack of correlative education. I totally agree with the article’s viewpoint that the IP must be protected. The following two ways maybe advisable to help the protection of IP. The first method is to legislate correlative laws to restrict people’s actions. The second method is to increase the publicity of IP protection. But we should realize that this problem is deep and serious. Please keep patient to solve it for a long time.
I feel very ashamed that I don’t know what IP represent until I review the article. This phenomenon is very normal in China. Because Chinese are very poor. I have no enough money to buy the genuine goods. To be honest, I often do it-download things from the internet. At this time, internet is SO convenience, we can download almost everything from it: books, movies, songs, games, etc.. without paying.
However , sometimes, I feel so ashamed there is a saying that China is just a copycat country. We have to commit that Intellectual Property is indeed a serious problem in China. However, I have no ways to solve this problem.
As the function of intellectual property rights is increasing in the international economy, more and more countries pay more attention to intellectual property. Intellectual property protection will go on improving in China as its economy is growing. Chinese companies start to demand their own intellectual property protection. It is the result of commonalty’s appealing. As the technology is developing rapidly, the traditional intellectual property is being challenged. The range of IP protection is expanding constantly. Sometime it makes a lot of disagreement because of different culture. Some countries is supporting that IP property should be international, not only belong to several countries. The IP property is as important as the commerce in business. And it has become a stanchion of WTO. Some countries, like America and Japan, put IP property in the stratagem of the country economy.
When I had a first glance at this title, I wondered it was an article about Internet Protocol or something else. Now it comes to a much more interesting problem. Intellectual Property (IP) protection absolutely has a long way to go in China. Today most Chinese people still have no sense about Intellectual Property. There’re millions of factories making pirated products every minutes all over China. We can see pirated Windows systems, pirated LV handbags and pirated books everywhere. Yes, they’re much cheaper.
This is a huge problem. We’re copying something, stealing something, not creating something! This is not a right way for China to develop its own technology. With copying and stealing, we’ll never catch up with the developed countries.
So, now we must wake up. We must respect Intellectual Property. I totally agree that the best IP protection is through education. With education, more and more people will know the importance of it and do the right things.
EDITOR’S NOTE
LIBRARIES BUY BOOKS FOR PEOPLE TO READ FOR FREE. THIS IS ALLOWED UNDER THE IP LAWS.
HOWEVER, IN CHINA SOME LIBRARIES CHARGE AN ENTRANCE FEE. THAT IS TO MAIN THE FACILITY, NOT TO PAY THE AUTHORS’ ANY ROYALTY. BOOKSTORES SELL BOOKS TO MAKE A PROFIT AND ARE NOT LIBRARIES WHERE YOU GO FOR FREE READING.
I have to admit that I have never been aware of the IP when I read or duplicated books from libraries. In my opinion it’s comprehensible. I have no idea about the concept of IP, let alone the IP protection.
After I read the article, I found that it is very important and necessary to attach importance to IP protection. It is hard to imagine that we import some new technologies from the countries that take the IP protection seriously and we still ignore the IP protection. And also it hard to imagine that the other countries copy our technologies that we have bought for our neglect of the IP protection.
We must be very angry when we were stolen by the other person. But when you are aware of that read and duplicates books without compensation is also a larceny, what will you do? So we must pay much attention to the IP protection. But it is unacceptable that I have to pay for the books that I read in the libraries. I don’t know how to balance this.
I agree on the point that IP protection should begin in education. As the article indicated, people in our country were not sensitive to the concept of “personal property” through out history. So education is surely needed to make student realize the importance of the Intellectual Property, only after which we can make sense of the law and sensitive to our daily behavior in every detail aspect.
Intellectual Property (IP) protection, in fact I do not know much about it, but it is close to us scientist ,too.
Today another epoch named Biological Technology(BT) age is coming, when the developed countries are grabing the enormous wealth of BT made, and occupying the patents of evrey inventions. What China doing?
We are following the steps of those countries, the wars for profits are just beginning.The conflicts both internal and external are pressing.
The imperative to be fast notice, fast reacting, fast specializing is ordered to every departments in China.
As we can see the number of lawsuit on IP protect has been more and more, what our students can do is learn well about the laws of our domain , be careful to all of the papers that you should to sign.
We could protect IP by more aggressive punishments.
With a better education, Chinese people may have more knowledge about IP. But would the IP be protected better? I do not totally agree.
If a cutting edge film just costs only 10 yuan by a pirate DVD, who will afford 100 yuan to buy it? Even the customer knows that it is not right to buy a pirate DVD, s/he will probably still buy the pirate DVD for saving money.
So if the government punishes not only the producers but also the customers for buying the pirate DVD, the IP will be better protected.
It is quite right that IP protection is a big problem for China. First because of the ignorance of most Chinese people which make some one take advantage of it. Second, although our country is trying to improve the legal system, but it is still far from enough, law loophole still exists, piracy happens repeatly, so there is still a long way to go. To deal this problem, I think the related department should give publcity on the IP protection to the vast majority, it is also very important to facilitate stuff recuitment and training, so that they can lead the improvement and reformation of IP protection, not only on the technology aspect, but also on the multitude aspect, more advanced technologies will make privacy more difficult and high-cost, to promote citizen’s awareness of IP protection will make people observe the law and rules voluntarily.
In summation, there is still a long way to go for China to improve IP protection.
In the long history of China, Chinese people have no sense of IP ownership and protection. Although China has set up the Copyright Law, it’s quite difficult to carry it out in the real society in China. As a popular saying in China says,”the government has the policy; the public has the solution”. Take the DVD as an example, although we know that we should protect the IP of the publisher, but the public have a great need for the free DVD resource. The market need results in the huge amount of private.
It’s really a revolution. The government should pay more efforts on this revolution to change 1.3 billion Chinese people’s conception and to set the market standardization.
It is really a rootedness problem in China. The point is that where there is a market, there is a manufacture. It is intractability to handle this without paying it. And as the result, inflation and price jumping may happen after all copies were forbidden. This also does harm for the corporation. However, this is our destiny no matter how unwilling we are.
Though China has made great progress since Chinese reform and open, we still have a long way to take which may cause a lot of pain. We could succeed as long as we believe the old saying,” No cross, no crown.”
IP protection is something looks like far from us, the only thing I will pay attention to is that I could not copy other’s paper but instead of cite it, but when I download some music and movies, I won’t realize it. Maybe we don’t think about its harmful, meanwhile look for its benefits. We don’t see any lose but gain from “share”. Not only we Chinese, foreigners come to China are happily buying lots of pirated copies back, everybody is willing to do themselves a favor if they can’t see the harm brought to others.
Jason class7
December 5th, 2009 at 11:50 pm · Edit
These eight questions are not able to be given an unequivocal answer, but it summarizes the confusions that Chinese students are facing to. When I am reading this article, I could not help laughing at the case of “the Middle School Experience”, which seemed to happen in my year of high school. Sometimes, I think why I have to learn English .Meanwhile ,with the conquering of the media, I and many students, will have this idea: :English is a international communication tool. With the trend of globalization, every county will take part in the world affairs.
At the same time, some people tell us ,”English is just a tool ! It will waste you much time if you learn this useless language. You’d better to learn some special knowledge! ”
Oh, my god ! I can hear many sounds from everywhere.I feel that I am destroyed!
EDITOR’S NOTE:
AFTER READING THIS POST I THOUGHT IT LOOKED VERY FAMILIAR SO I CUT AND PASTED IT INTO GOOGLE. LOOK WHAT CAME UP -
QUESTIONS | China Holistic English
16 Nov 2009 … When reading this article, I could not help laughing at the case of “the Middle School Experience”, which seemed to happen in my year of high school. … I am considering that, maybe it has nothing to do with the attitude, should it be a wrong choice to learn this language from the beginning if have …
chinaholisticenglish.org/teaching-english-in-china/…/comment-page-7/
IP THEFT WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! You stole from kam_class15 December 5th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
van_class3
December 5th, 2009 at 10:23 pm · Edit
If I had read this article several years ago, I would quickly give the answer. But today, the answer will be changed absolutely. However I can’t give you the answer, it’s not my poor English make me don’t know how to express myself but I don’t know what to say. I have been studying English for 11years. It is so shamed that I don’t know why we are learning English in China. I spent so much time on studying English. I even have not used it except in the classroom. Damned, I just know so many people here are studying English. But why? It really make me headache.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
I HAVE READ THIS SAME POST SEVERAL DAYS AGO. THIS IS NOT AN ORIGINAL WORK. PLAGIARISM WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. However, it was subsequently learned that it was a double post by the same person.
If I haven’t watched the movie”Working Girl”,and if Martin didn’t emphasize the serious consequence of plagiarizing from others,maybe,I won’t be care about IP in reality. But after this IP comments, I knew I would not check others’ posts,and I do it.I know IP is quite serious problem in our scioety ,especially should be paid attention to in China.I were just the person,like many Chinese, who copy others’ book without author’s permission previously. But I know I am not the unreachable and unteachable student,I correct my mistake,and particularly grateful to Martin for his timely help.Protecting intellectual property is really important.
When I received the email of IP theft will not be toleratedI think it is ”IP thift “,a student change his Internet Protocol adress to make the post.Aha!”But now I know it is Intellectual Property.
It is very common in China.We can heard a lot of news like some college students thief others articles and thief in the exams.What is worse.The software and the other high technology product.As what I know only 1% people in China would buy the Office and Windows.Only 8% would buy a antivirus software,even it is only 20 yuan a year.And we can make the Iphone before The Apple came to China.
About the 《The Patent Law of the People’s Republic of China》,it is only came into effect on October 7, 2005.So it is just the beginning.The Western has mature environment.And we are on the way.The IP will be protected better and better before long.
I agree that IP ownership and protection can only be accomplished through proper education, not hypocritical half-hearted educational efforts. With the development of economy and internationalization, we should pay more attention to Intellectual Property.
At present, many of people have no concept of IP. They including me don’t realize that what we have done is illegal; for example, downloading free music, free movie, free software, and free book and so on. IP is international issue, existing in every country not only in China. Some days ago, Google is charged for copying Chinese writer’s book.
IP is developing on the right way now in China, but there is still a long way to go.
To be honest,I really have no idea that reading books for free in the bookstore is IP theft before I read this passage.So you can see how ignorant we are at intellectual protection.Yes,IP theft is really a serious problem in China.But we have not been taught that those we are already familiar with are kind of IP theft.And ,also so many manufacturers are doing what is actually illegal but without basic sense of what is IP theft.We are not lack of perfect IP protection laws,what we really need is perfect system and good IP protection inviroment.We are not lack of perfect teaching books,what we really need is good education and great leading examples.IP protection is a basic general konwledge of laws that we all should pay serious attention to.
When I read “The people know that they cannot take the book out of the store without paying for it, but they do not understand that their act of reading it without compensation also constitutes a theft. “, I was shocked. In childhood when I saw the cartoon “Doraemon”, I really couldn’t understand why Nobita was afraid of reading in a bookshop. And when Nobita was detected in the act of reading in the bookshop by the owner of shop, he run for it. At that time I puzzled that reading it the shop was not allowed. And now, I clear about the reason. Because reading in the shop without paying for it, is just the act of IP theft, this is no good than stealing tangible goods!
EDITOR’S NOTE:
CHINA HAS THE MOST MODERN AND UP TO DATE IP PROTECTION LAWS IN THE WORLD.
In the recent years, you can hear from news about some companies have discarded their China market because of intellectual property in China is unprotectable. Dr.Wolff states that the best IP protection is through education, not more enforcement actions. But I disagree, I think that the most important reason why Intellectual property in China is unprotectable is that the international copyright laws do not apply strictly in China, so there is no penalty for a chinese retailer or institution to carry fake stuff and pirated product. Another reason is that China is a developing country but not a developed country, many chinese get so less salary so that they will not be able to afford the luxury goods, as a consequence, they prefer to buy pirated products. So it is market selection that contributes to the lack of intellectual property brief in China.
Intellectual protection is something we should pay more and more attention. Especially as the dawn of the knowledge economy comes. IP play a critical role in the respect of the author and his works which bring him great interest or honor. That inspire all the highly qualified intellectuals with high-spirited. It not only do better to the development of economy, but create an energetic atmosphere of research and product.
I agree with Monica’s opinion that we are so familiar with “copy” things and do not take it seriously because we didn’t see the harm it brought to others.So everyone think it is normal and everyone do the same thing.If we know the results this kind of behavior has,maybe some of us will think twice.
Piracy is rather common in China. Many people aren’t aware of the IP. And the price of genuine products, such as software, are rather high for Chinese companies and people.I think the IP protection can be improved. Education will help in certain way. No one want to be regarded as a thief. But I think a big progress in IP protection will occur when a large amount of ordinary Chinese people can afford the high price. When Germany ,USA and Janpan developed their econonies, trying to pursue and overtake the most developed countries at that time, they would not be blamed for the Piracy. But the world changed, and the rules has been made by the developed countries. It is a big challege for the rise of China.
IP protection is a serious problem. As not everyone is conscious of the necessary demand, it has some problem in it. There are many people copying the books and reprint them out in order to make money. They are much cheaper than what are sold in the bookstores. So it has a group of customers although they have realized that these books are reprinted. It has difficulty in changing this idea. People just want to get something with little money. They don’t care if it is illegal. There are many problem to deal with before carrying out the best IP protection.
I just study English.
Like the author said, Chinese need “a psychological revolution” absolutely. For me, I have realized Intellectual Property since I written paper in undergraduate college. Now I still don’t know which things I do is called stealing. I just study how to avoid these violations. For most Chinese, they may not realize the importance of IP. With globalization, we will be indicted puzzledly one day. Meanwhile, the IP protection doesn’t only play a role in restricting us but also protecting our Intellectual Property.
There is some problem in IP protection in China. Some people will buy pirated books for they are cheap. Some people download electric books, music or film because they are for free. Some people read books in a book store for a day long without paying any. But seldom think it is illegal. Why? China have developed a lot of relative laws to protect IP since decades ago. However, phenomenon despite repeated prohibition. Knowledge of IP protection is not publicized and people haven`t realized it. It is important to advocate IP protection through education, and to start with children!
How to protect our IP? This question is worth to thinking. In the recent years, you can hear from newspaper or TV about some people discarded their China market because of intellectual property in China is unprotect able. In Martin’s eyes, he considers that we should through education, not more enforcement actions. I don’t agree with him. Because education is useless to some people, maybe in their minds there are no moral conceptions, they may don’t change anything forever. So we must take other measure such as law. But it doesn’t mean that education is not good. It needs long time to take effect. But law is different. It can play the role in the shortest time.
Although there is still a long way to make IP in the right direction in china, and I have confidence
In recent years , we come to kown what is IP ,and begin to have the thought to protect it . Intellectual Property result from our respect to original authors . In the internet time ,if we don’t have the laws of IP ,many things can be theft though downloade and copy ,origianal ahthors’ right can be encroached easilly .Maybe he or she have devote painstaking effort on the product and if is unfair to him or her. But we have to kown that sometimes we have to use the law of IP to limit the authors’t rights such as when monopoly is coming.Because when product are controlled in a few manufactures’ hands ,they can manipulate the market and raise the price to exploite customers .Law is made by the ruling classes ,the aim is to order the objects .The one who are stronger to make the rules.
It’s a fact that China doesn’t do well in IP protection historically. In order to become a member of World Trade Organization, series of intellectual property protection laws are passed and this will help us develop our social legal system. Economic development is an effective motive force of China’s reform. With China’s fast economic developing these years, much development in other fields didn’t keep pace with the economic development, especially its incomplete social legal system. Chinese have very poor concept of private intellectual property rights historically. Actions should be taken to enhance contempt of IP protection.
It is a very long and very difficult road for chinese to make the IP PROTECTION well enough. Education is the best way to solve the problem, but not the directing way. The essence of the solution to the problem is Money! Look around, we also buy pirate books, clothe and shoes et al although we are postgraduates and we all know the IP PROTECTION. I like ALAN’s song and listen the his music everyday without any money. Why we do that? The point is most of us have such money to buy the Normal Products.
When the chinese are rich enough they will protect the IP self-conscious!
IP protection has becomed one serious problem for years. I think most people in China do not take IP protection serious and if they knew the theft of IP, but they would continue to do this because that would help them save much money. A numberous of people are poor in China, they have no extra money to protect IP, and have to accept it. In my opinion, improving people’s life is the one way to prohibit this phenomenon.
The first time I see this word “IP”, I consider it to be the Internet Protocol, for every computer has its own IP address, when we connect to the internet. But when I read the article, I found that I make a big understanding of the word. How shame it is! IP protection in china is really weak today. It’s very common to see that the infringing of IP happen everyday. Our government has make many effort to IP protection, but the get little effects. Benefit is the key point. It’ll be a long way for China to walk on in the IP Protection.
The world is getting smaller and smaller because of the technology and communication. But we also come across a lot of problems during the process of all these progress. Intellectual Property (IP) is a big one. We meet a lot of these examples between China and Korea at the traditional culture. Also some ones beteen China and USA at the software. I think the best way to protect IP is to make more strict and comprehensive law also more severe punishment. The education is also very important because this is the essential way to solve the problem. We should know everything which is the labor of others is of value and we should respect this. If only we do all of these we may get the same protection from others. That may make the socity system better.
After reading this article, I asked myself, do I value Intellectual Property? The answer is no, not really. I download a lot movies and music through internet without paying, and I don’t feel guilty at all. Everybody does so, it seems that we consider them are completely free to us. We just don’t consider it as a big problem, though we know it is illegal. One big reason of this problem is that when we can get free copies in internet, why bother spent a lot of money to buy them. By the way, they are expensive compared to our salary.
I always read books in bookstores for free. To my surprise, I always “steal”, don’t I? It’s so terrible. We have to admit that Chinese lack awareness of IP protection for a long time due to our own national conditions. Chinese are so ignorant of ownership of IP that we may violate other rights unconsciously or be violated. We must change our minds. Maybe politics lessons could be add a part about IP in school. Education should work from the baby.
What about “hacker”? I think it’s cool.However ,if he does some illegal things such as “Internet crime” ,it won’t be moral.But now we download others’ article,pictures,ppt and cited them without explanation of the primary derivation ,aren’t we “hacker”.It’s another style of plagiarism.As a result ,IP protect is important for prevention of plaginarism and intellectual property.Besides,citizen’s consciousness and morality are important ,too.
IP protection is a little new to me although I hear it time and time again in these years. I even can’t associate steal of thief with using other’s ideas. I have no consciousness about it. People can hardly see the shape or direction of it. It is bodiless and elusory. It is beyond dispute that intellectual property is as important as physical property. Although our law nearly catches up with the international, the common opinion falls behind much. I can see that the market is full of piratical disks or books, and the internet is filled with piratical software. A lot of the Microsoft Windows are piratical too, even in some big electronic emporium such as GOME. Chinese covet these small profits and disregard others’ right and work. It is immoral and illegal. The government amended the law maybe a good try to reduce these happened again. I hope it is a good opening.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
If everyone comitts murder then murder is legal?
In China ,The behave of Piracy is actually legal anyway. Why? In fact , our law have the clause to inhibit these piracies. But These still happen everyday and everywhere. So the illegal is legal in such a curious phenomenon.
What is cause for the phenomenon? Firstly, most of us didn’t have the enough money to purchase the copyright. In our country, the wage of us is much lower than USA. For a instance,If I purchase some genuine software such as Windows XP in China, that means I have paid one years’ total outcome.However, the pirate of it will only cost me one dollar in turn. So why I should risk the whole year’s money to get only one copyright? I have to eat,drink,pay the rent of the apaytment and… that is the truth in china.
secondly, In the shops, even if I was a rich man, I couldn’t get the genuine window XP because they don’t sell it! the dealer won’t risk buying the goods the most most consumers can’t afford it… that is also a truth.
So Bill Gate even claimed we were the thief. However, we are not thief. We indeed can’t afford it . If Bill can make his product lower to fit us, we are glad to buy it.
This is a process. Education and Economy are the factors to solve it! Law can be effective only when education and economy do their works.