CNN.com reports that the White House will make major announcement this week about two complaints to the World Trade Organization (WTO) accusing China of unfair trade practices.
Formal legal action by the US comes after months of pressing China for a crack down on pirated U.S. films, music and software.
The complaints to the WTO are an attempt to show Congress that the administration is getting tough on the trade front due to concerns about U.S. jobs.
Several trade deals are stalled on Capitol Hill and the move is an effort to drum up support among Democrats amid allegations the White House has not done enough to get real action from China.
In China however a state news agency said on Friday that China has extended criminal penalties for music and movie piracy to people caught with smaller amounts of DVDs or CDs, after foreign complaints about poor enforcement.
Foreign governments and the film and music industries have been pressing China to stamp out it's rampant product piracy industry.
The Supreme People's Court in an order last Thursday, cut in half the number of counterfeit DVDs, CDs or other audiovisual products that trigger criminal penalties of up to three years in prison, the Xinhua News Agency said.
The court also raised fines for smaller offenders.
Anyone caught with 500 pirated discs will face criminal prosecution instead of fines, down from the previous 1,000 discs, Xinhua said. The number of discs that triggers more severe penalties of up to seven years in prison was cut in half to 2,500.
"The latest judicial change seems to be aimed at addressing overseas complaints that the country is too lenient" with pirates, Xinhua said. It claimed this was "a stern warning" and expects cases to rise.
China is generally seen as the world's leading source of illegally copied products.
The supreme court told lower courts to start accepting piracy cases filed by companies and individuals as well as those brought by prosecutors.
Jon Dudas, Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, visited Beijing last month and pressed Chinese officials to lower the threshold for prosecution.
This week, the government said police in the southern city of Guangzhou carried out China's biggest seizure of pirated DVDs and CDs to date, seizing 1.8 million discs on March 17.
Police arrested 13 people and seized 30 disc reproduction machines.
Monday, 9 April 2007
Electronic Arts buys stake in China's The9 Ltd
Video-game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS) intends to spend about $200 million on a 19% stake in China's The9 Ltd. (NCTY) (Shanghai Securities News)
The report said the companies had basically reached agreement on the deal, which would give Electronic Arts entry to the Chinese market and help The9 gain operating rights for Electronic Arts' games in China.
Electronic Arts has been trying to gain access to the Chinese multiplayer online games market, and has had negotiations and partnership talks with several local players according to the report.
The report said the companies had basically reached agreement on the deal, which would give Electronic Arts entry to the Chinese market and help The9 gain operating rights for Electronic Arts' games in China.
Electronic Arts has been trying to gain access to the Chinese multiplayer online games market, and has had negotiations and partnership talks with several local players according to the report.
Google "sorry" to Sohu for scraping
Google had to apologize today to Sohu.com, a Chinese rival. Sohu.com had complained its data were used by Google in a new Internet tool. in an incident that highlighted the intense competition in China's booming online market.
Sohu complained that Google's tool for input of Chinese characters seemed to copy from their Sogou search engine. The similarities had been pointed out by Chinese Web surfers after Google released its tool.
Google in a statement offered "an apology to users and to the Sohu company" but gave no details of what Google actuall did.
Web portals in China react quickly to competitive threats as they spend heavily on new search, entertainment and other features. Inputting non-phonetic Chinese ideograms is time-consuming. Any system that can be more effective will do best in the web site competition.
Google's tool, the Pinyin Input Method Editor, suggests possible characters after just a few letters are typed, and is meant to be an easier way to input characters in Pinyin, a phonetic system for writing characters in Roman letters.
Google said its suggestions for characters are based on data gathered by Google's Chinese-language search engine about the frequency of searches for certain words but Sohu complained that Google also drew on similar data from Sogou.
After the USA China has the second-largest population of Internet users, with 137 million people online. It is probable that China will surpass the United States as the largest population in two years.
Google and other non Chinese Internet players are struggling to adapt to a Chinese market where communist leaders try to control what the public sees and limit foreign ownership of Web companies.
The Chinese writing system adds a layer of complexity for foreign competitors trying to tailor their systems for Chinese users.
Google has market share of 21.7% in China's an dsits at No. 2. Baidu.com Inc. is the industry leader with 55.2% ( source:Shanghai research firm iResearch Inc. )
Yahoo Inc.'s China portal is third with 7.2% and Sogou No. 4 with 6.5%.
Google launched a China-based service, Google.cn, after its market share fell due to government filters which slowed access for Chinese users to its U.S. service. Googles new service excludes search results on human rights and other topics banned by the Chinese communist government. Human rights activists have criticized the service for this.
The Chinese partner that operates Yahoo's China portal announced in January it was getting out of mainstream search due to intense competition and would become a business-oriented search engine.
Sohu complained that Google's tool for input of Chinese characters seemed to copy from their Sogou search engine. The similarities had been pointed out by Chinese Web surfers after Google released its tool.
Google in a statement offered "an apology to users and to the Sohu company" but gave no details of what Google actuall did.
Web portals in China react quickly to competitive threats as they spend heavily on new search, entertainment and other features. Inputting non-phonetic Chinese ideograms is time-consuming. Any system that can be more effective will do best in the web site competition.
Google's tool, the Pinyin Input Method Editor, suggests possible characters after just a few letters are typed, and is meant to be an easier way to input characters in Pinyin, a phonetic system for writing characters in Roman letters.
Google said its suggestions for characters are based on data gathered by Google's Chinese-language search engine about the frequency of searches for certain words but Sohu complained that Google also drew on similar data from Sogou.
After the USA China has the second-largest population of Internet users, with 137 million people online. It is probable that China will surpass the United States as the largest population in two years.
Google and other non Chinese Internet players are struggling to adapt to a Chinese market where communist leaders try to control what the public sees and limit foreign ownership of Web companies.
The Chinese writing system adds a layer of complexity for foreign competitors trying to tailor their systems for Chinese users.
Google has market share of 21.7% in China's an dsits at No. 2. Baidu.com Inc. is the industry leader with 55.2% ( source:Shanghai research firm iResearch Inc. )
Yahoo Inc.'s China portal is third with 7.2% and Sogou No. 4 with 6.5%.
Google launched a China-based service, Google.cn, after its market share fell due to government filters which slowed access for Chinese users to its U.S. service. Googles new service excludes search results on human rights and other topics banned by the Chinese communist government. Human rights activists have criticized the service for this.
The Chinese partner that operates Yahoo's China portal announced in January it was getting out of mainstream search due to intense competition and would become a business-oriented search engine.
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