While leafing through the imaginatively named Eurobiz, magazine of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, I found an article calling on China’s courts to get tough with violators of intellectual property laws.
The drift of the article was that the softies on China’s bench had been allowing piracy to run riot, although there were recent, reassuring signs of a crackdown.
Now, China’s judges are not used to being criticized for leniency. They sentence 2000 people to death every year. Nor are they scrupulous about fair trials. In 2006 they acquitted less than one percent of defendants.
I turned from Eurobiz to the Yangtze Evening Paper which carried a familiar-looking picture of dejected, orange-clad defendants lined up in court. As if on cue, Nanjing’s Xuanwu court had just handed down the heaviest sentences ever recorded in a Chinese intellectual property case.
A young husband and wife team of DVD traders, Wang Yuansheng and Wang Yanli, were sent to prison for 5 and 10 years respectively. Their supplier, Chen Hezhong, was also sentenced to 10 years. Xu Hongbing, the big fish among the Wangs’ customers, got 5 years. Four bag carriers received sentences of between 1 and 5 years. The total value of stock seized by police was less than $20,000.
All this fuss was to mark International Intellectual Property Day. Yes, there really is such a day and it is celebrated, if that is the word, on 26th April every year. It is promoted by a United Nations organization with a $500,000,000 budget. Just think how many fine lunches and Powerpoint presentations half a billion dollars can buy.
I’ve never met the author of the Eurobiz article but I’m sure he would never dream of buying a pirate DVD, which almost certainly puts him in a minority among foreign business folk in China, whose cupboards are usually packed to capacity with them. It would be mathematically impossible for some foreigners to watch their stock of films in their remaining lifespan.
I’m sure there are serious (and dreary) arguments in favor of defending intellectual property rights but I can’t see what is gained by destroying the lives of small shopkeepers struggling to make ends meet in China’s tough, unforgiving society.
As the old song goes; it’s the rich wot gets the pleasure, it’s the poor wot gets the blame.
