China Seizes 13 Million Pirated Discs 197
TechFreep writes "The Chinese government is waging a 100-day battle against software and media piracy, the largest such effort ever conducted. After launching the effort on July 15, Chinese police and copyright officials have raided 537,000 illegal publication markets and distributors in major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Liaoning Province. Of these, government officials have closed down 8,907 shops and street vendors, 481 publishing companies and 942 illegal websites." This article in China Daily quotes vendors of legal media products gushing over their increased sales.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Please make the most important division (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My problem with this (Score:2, Insightful)
Have you ever considered the possibility that the huge multinational corporation that produce movies want to keep things the way they are? China's slave, er, child, er inexpensive labor force helps them to maintain their astronomical profits.
LK
Re:Illegal Websites? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:My problem with this (Score:5, Insightful)
China is not a communist country. They are an authoritarian fascist regime.
The soviet union with Lenin was an example of something a bit more communist, and Cuba regime resembles communism even more.
All of them share some degree of authoritarism, but that is not a needed or unique characteristic of a communist country.
Aside from the clarification... why would you want to bring down communism in another country?
Do you think that the autodetermination principle is not a good thing to respect?
It's one thing to choose to trade with countries with which you share ideology, but trying to force other independent countries into doing things the way you do, looks pretty authoritarian itself. And it would be hilarious to do that, in the name of democracy.
Re:Keep going... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Keep going... (Score:5, Insightful)
What America needs is an IP-manufacturing based economy, not a IP-distribution based economy.
We need to start selling the service of creating IP directly instead of indirectly funding it by charging for distribution. Since distribution is essentially free, thanks to the net, and it's clearly impossible to compete with free, then we need a new system. Not legal protectionism that conflicts with one of the most key elements of human nature -- the desire to share knowledge.
Re:My problem with this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My problem with this (Score:3, Insightful)
Shh, I hope our government doesn't take any lessons from them. Though we'll just arrange our system where people still have freedom of speech, and can blog and complain on the internet with all the millions of other US residents. Heck, we can even still do our voting along our tradional lines since it's understood by those in power and it's hard for your average disgrunted citizen to actually change anything. They have to form a group or party and go through our organized political process. That weeds out all the lazy right there. Everyone who won't go through the "democratic" process can just be labeled an extremist and ignored by most of the citizenery.
One upon a time . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
No on both counts. We did it cheaper and had a domestic market that couldn't afford anything but US made wool. What was exported was STILL cheaper than English wool. British wool was driven into a niche of "high quality" while Americans got rich on low-cost goods.
Moral? High Quality is the last refuge of the losing side.
Re:Keep going... (Score:3, Insightful)
Please tell us what that better business plan is? Why should a company direct resources toward research and development only to have another company come along and cheaply manufacture the exact same thing without having to worry about recouping the R&D? If the company that developed the product competed on cost they woudl take far longer to turn a profit and be able to reinvest in future projects but the rip-off company can just move along to something else to rip-off.