From last Thursday:

China’s top court has stepped up the fight against intellectual piracy by lowering the threshold to prosecute people manufacture or sell counterfeit intellectual property products.

A new judicial interpretation issued by the Supreme People’s Court on Thursday states that anyone who manufactures 500 or more counterfeit copies (discs) of computer software, music, movies, TV series and other audio-video products can be prosecuted and faces a prison term of up to three years.

A few comments:

1. Effective criminal prosecution of IP infringement is perhaps the most effective way to make significant progress with this problem in China. I’ve been saying this for years and still believe it, so I welcome the spirit of this new Interpretation.

2. I haven’t read this Interpretation yet, so I do not know all the details. However, the press seems to be reporting that this deals chiefly with digital media. That’s all well and good, the piracy rate in these industries is incredibly high. However, once again we get the misimpression that effective IP protection begins and ends with digital media (software, movies, music, etc.). That’s a smack in the face to all those enterprises out there whose widgets, doodads and doohickeys (pardon the technical terminology) are being counterfeited and who never get any press coverage.

3. To leave this on another negative note, lowering the threshhold on criminal prosecution is great, but the biggest problem in this area is the discretion of the police and prosecutors in going after infringers. Whether 1,000 discs or 500 is the threshhold, it won’t make a difference if your friendly local officer refuses to take the case.

It’s Monday morning, and I’m grumpy. Not an excuse but an explanation.

Read the China Daily article here.