Chinas Copyright law ad enforcement

Introduction

Concern over enforcement of Chinese copyright protection laws have been ongoing on an international level for many years now , commencing in the 1980s . These concerns have grown out of excessive incidents of piracy within the People 's Republic of China . Pressure from the international community particularly the United States of America have prompted some changes . For example China has joined a number of international treaties and conventions on protection of copyright material and intellectual property in general . In compliance with these treaties and a bilateral agreement signed with the United

States in 1995 China has enacted domestic laws which reflect the principle terms of these treaties , conventions and agreements . One such example is the is the most recent enactment of the Copyright Law of the People 's Republic of China which was adopted on 27 October , 2001

Despite these changes , the US firms report that the problems they faced in 1986 are essentially the same as of 2006 . These problems are the incidents of piracy which by and large stem from a lack of enforcement of intellectual property rights . This takes a broad view of China 's intellectual property laws with the emphasis on copyright laws and examines the enforcement issues that give rise to concerns by China 's trade partners

Background and History of China 's Intellectual Property Laws

The history and development of Chinese intellectual property laws ties in with its historical , social and economic changes . It wasn 't until September 7 , 1990 that China passed its first ever copyright protection law . China 's first intellectual property rights laws were not drafted until 1982 . Even so , in 1986 China 's intellectual property laws were weak and routinely flouted 'Lecturer Deming Liu of Newcastle Law School maintains that China has continued to import ' Western IP laws either as a result of external pressures or as a result of economic policies

Jessica Jiong Zhou maintains however that no amount of economic changes , external pressures and IP law reform can remove the national barriers that lead to ineffective copyright laws in the People 's Republic of China . A predisposition against copyright laws have always been a mainstay in Chinese political culture since Mao 's Marxist revolution of 1949 . The concept following from Mao 's regime was one that embraced the idea that all assets which included ideas and intellectual property generally were owned collectively . Add to this the age-old Chinese concept that competitiveness in society was not conducive to the norm . Moreover , there was an overriding indoctrination that the State controlled the individual . While these notions are not as prevalent today as they were in ancient times , traces of the concept remain throughout Chinese culture and no doubt contribute to the attitudes toward copyright protection . Those attitudes tend to dictate the concept that they are merely a necessary evil for the developing economic policies and to maintain China 's growth as world power

Be that as it may , China has always recognized the existence of copyright protection and traces...