China Official Cool to U.S. Antipiracy Plan

A proposal by a U.S. senator to curb piracy by forming joint ventures between U.S. record companies and Chinese firms would be impossible to implement, a Chinese official says.

The scheme was proposed last week by visiting Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to economic czar Zhu Rongji as a way of converting pirate compact disc factories to legal production.

“Personally, I think it is impossible,” the unnamed official from the State Copyright Administration said Friday.

The official said Sino-U.S. joint ventures had been caught and closed for piracy in a recent sweep, suggesting Feinstein’s scheme would face difficulties.

“We probably can’t stop them from pirating even if they all become Sino-U.S. joint ventures,” the official said.

Feinstein relayed to Zhu U.S. concerns that Beijing has failed to implement an intellectual property rights accord signed by the two countries last February.

Feinstein, visiting China with two Senate colleagues, said she had found six U.S. record companies willing to form joint ventures with local CD producers to curb pirating.

The Sino-U.S. CD venture at Zhuhai in the Guangdong province faced further investigations together with four other southern China firms caught in a crackdown launched last month, the copyright official said.

The antipiracy drive had brought about 95% of CD production lines under inspection by provincial authorities responsible for copyright protection, the official said, with the remaining firms scheduled to be investigated soon.

Separately, Beijing seized more than 41,000 items of pirated and pornographic audio and video material as well as 4,000 illegally printed products since a crackdown started, it was reported Friday.

The report also said the government issued a circular this month banning all laserdisc cinemas, which are accused of showing pornographic films and mostly using counterfeit discs.

About 95% of China’s 5,000 laserdisc cinemas have been closed and the rest will be shut down soon, the People’s Daily said.