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China Announces Punishments for Intellectual-Property Theft
- jostmey 8y agoUntil I read about actual punishments being handed out, I'm skeptical that China will actually enforce rules on intellectual property theft.
- yostrovs 8y agoAt the very least it'll be another item to fear the government over, as things like this can be used in the future against you. I agree with you that it won't foster a positive IP system. In China, instead, it will create more avenues for graft and retribution.
- scotty79 8y ago> positive IP system No such thing exists in any country.
- weberc2 8y agoCitation?
- yobrien 8y agoHow can he prove something doesn't exist? You'd have to show an example it does exist. Or they'd have to list every system and show why it's not positive.
- weberc2 8y agoI'm not expecting a mathematical proof; just trying to understand what he means by "positive" and how he would explain the development of IP law in every successful economy. Surely no reasonable person would state an absolute like this based on _nothing_, right? > Or they'd have to list every system and show why it's not positive. Again, I asked for a citation, not original work. If no one has found a good IP law system (for some value of "good") then surely some economist or IP law specialist has written a paper surveying the landscape, right? If this were not the case, it would be extraordinary!
- muro 8y agoAnother tool for selective enforcement
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rhizome 8y agoTo be fair, China is a signatory to all of the major copyright treaties of the past 60+ years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_international_copyright_agreements#Table_of_parties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_internation...
- reaperducer 8y agoTo be fair, China is a signatory to all of the major copyright treaties of the past 60+ years. And I clicked on "I Accept" on hundreds of EULAs. That doesn't mean I'm going to abide by the terms I "agreed" to. Because of its manufacturing sector, China can sign onto whatever it wants and still not enforce the rules. What are the other signatories going to do? Make iPhones in Brussels?
- sanxiyn 8y agoSamsung makes its phones in Vietnam just fine. I think Apple should follow if it can.
- draw_down 8y agoOh great, sounds like they take intellectual property very seriously then.
- baq 8y agoi expect foreigners to be punished for stealing china's original IP.
- empath75 8y agoI'm not entirely convinced that they should All the great western powers became so based on "stolen" intellectual property, including a great deal from China. It makes no sense for China or any other developing country to commit to such a regime until they're doing it as an equal partner.
- reaperducer 8y agoAll the great western powers became so based on "stolen" intellectual property All the great western powers also believe that two wrongs don't make a right.
- coliveira 8y agoOh, they do. Just look at the response given to terrorism: endless wars.
- djrobstep 8y agoLet's call intellectual property what it really is in this context: rich countries demanding that less rich countries give them money. That fact that expropriation of wealth from countries and regions that already have less is the status quo economically, doesn't make it any less obscene or immoral.
- Gustomaximus 8y agoI suspect they will enforce a few high profile cases for meaningless products like fashion labels, and then ignore any strategically important industries citing lack of proof, or limited punishments where there is clear proof. Trump pushing China like this is one of the better points things about his presidency (obviously opinion only). I really hope he doesn't put down his cards based on a few unlikely to be enforced points (or generally limited value) so he can tweet how he made a deal and how great he is.
- danimal88 8y agoI'm 100% as interested in Market Access as I am with IP theft. I'm sure there are small and large companies with IP concerns but overwhelmingly, this is a large companies game since they are the ones doing really heavy R&D lifting on new materials and technologies. For startups, genuine market access to China would be such a fantastic opportunity.
- westiseast 8y agoAs a real world example, the fashion industry in China is hopelessly awash with fakes and copies. There’s very little enforcement of that kind of intellectual property, and also such high barriers to entry for say small/medium European fashion brands that they have no options. Chinese counterfeiters make money hand over fist ripping off US/EU designers, often working with the same factories producing the legitimate products for export. When a small/medium EU clothing company can setup their own Taobao store easily and cheaply, sell online without overwhelming competition from counterfeiters, repatriate their earnings without significant issues, then perhaps we can consider the playing field levelled somewhat.
- ryacko 8y agoSounds like the Chinese are only selling defective products that westerners won’t accept.
- westiseast 8y agoThat’s not correct. Especially with low-tech products like clothing, you can easily buy fakes that have equivalent (or better) quality than originals at 1/5th of the US/EU price. You’re not paying expensive EU/US staff wages, company taxes, export costs, duties, design fees, branding and marketing costs. The base cost of a $120 pair of NIKE shoes is around $10 - it’s easy to find counterfeit Nike that cost $20 with great quality.
- max76 8y ago> You're not paying [...] marketing costs. While the average counterfeit probably spends 1/1000th the marketing cost Nike does per dollar of revenue, without any marketing there could not be any sales.
- s3r3nity 8y agoI'm a bit confused, as the Bloomberg article _hints_ at this, but then quickly moves on: is this related to the US tariffs / "Trade War" situation?
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoIf it is, I would expect that to be glossed over by Bloomberg and others. Not that it matters much to me. I’ve been designing my embedded components in such a way that even if I turned over source code it’s not of much use to anyone. You’d need to hack my device and my AWS instances to damage more than the one board you bought from me. China stealing previous IP from me, made me learn a lesson and get better. Not that I don’t want to see someone pay for the theft, just that I’m realistic they won’t.
- codeinstyle 8y agoOut of curiosity, how did you find out about the IP theft? Also, what are some actions (if there are any) that one can take if one learns of such IP theft? Are there any legal protections or is it simply a lost cause at that point?
- SlowRobotAhead 8y agoHappy to answer, found out when our single Chinese dealer contacted us saying he's able to buy 1000 of our parts of the shelf at a place he knows. Got one it, saw it's a green circuit board and not the color we use. They had lifted my code from the micro using a voltage glitch and placed it on theirs. Works great... cause it's my code. Basically I think the rule is don't even consider legal action unless you would be happy to dump $500,000 on it. We make much more than that on my product but for a variety of reasons wouldn't go down that route. Longer answer on prevention is that if you're making a "dumb" device today, expect no reasonable protections if your price point keeps you in a standard microcontroller range. So, if you're using anything from PIC/AVR to Cortex M7, assume you will give firmware away somehow. In our case, the next product is BLE connected and will self-authenticate via our server, we looked at PSK and PKI, and found a way to do it cost effectively because of a unique scenario that it has to mate up to the part number on another product. Basically I can just watch the database for mismatched pairs and ban them from being used. Not perfect, and someone could make one bad unit for themselves, but not thousands.
- dmortin 8y agoIs there still a rule that foreing companies can operate in China only if they are joint ventures with Chinese partners? If so then the Chinese partners can get to know all the foreign IP. I'm sure there will be show punishments under the new law, but through the joint ventures China can still get all the foreign tech knowledge it wants.
- educationdata 8y agoI have heard in many areas the official rule on the book has already been changed. Foreign companies are longer required to joint ventures with Chinese partners. However, in reality it could be extremely difficult to operate without a Chinese partner. Local government agencies will just give you so much trouble that you will eventually find out that it is much easier to have a Chinese partner to deal with those issues.
- westiseast 8y agoI think this is the correct answer. State sponsored theft of highly secret commercial/military information is one issue, rampant intellectual property abuse is another (eg. in fashion or entertainment industries). However potentially larger problems are the 100% legal barriers to entry for foreign companies - censorship, onerous and expensive company formation, trademark registration, inability to operate in a hopelessly corrupt political environment, opaque legal system, legal requirements to have CCP ‘agents’ operating inside your company, local government fiefdoms that often operate beyond the law etc etc.
- baybal2 8y agoI can't say that being iron clad. I will not put America in ranks with them, but I think that the biggest upside of China is that it has no such insanely convoluted tax system as in America.
- bilbo0s 8y agoIt's not as convoluted, but it's just as expensive. That said, it's their right. I get it. Their nation, their tax rules. If I don't like the rules, I'm free NOT to start a business in China. That I understand, but to intimate that it's somehow "better" than the US is just being a little disingenuous. When it's all said and done, you'll likely pay more to do business in China. (But there's more potential upside too, so you need to take all these things into account.)
- AdmiralAsshat 8y agoDoes that mean they'll revise their song pick for the official 2022 Olympic Games?[0] [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/world/asia/to-some-song-of-beijing-games-is-suspiciously-similar-to-a-disney-ballad.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/04/world/asia/to-some-song-o...
- mrbonner 8y agoReally? How about this: https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-maneuvers-to-snag-top-secret-boeing-satellite-technology-1543943490 https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-maneuvers-to-snag-top-sec...
- mips_avatar 8y agoYeah I don’t think Xi is really going to tell the PLA that they have to stop their corporate espionage/stealing American fighter plans.
- naringas 8y agodigital property should not work under exclusive principles (unlike physical property which has to). to force exclusionary constrains upon digital property means we choose to abandon one of the key advantages of digital information. it means we favor owning things over being free.
- hopefulengineer 8y agowhy would any company invest in R&D if it could just be immediately taken for free?
- kingraoul3 8y agoBecause their competitors are doing so, and would be able to outcompete them at the point of sale based on price.
- wetpaws 8y agoSomething something open source
- rudolph9 8y agoThe idea is stealing is not a black and white concept. Stealing something digital generally has very different effects than stealing something physical. For example, if someone the software I own without my permission and doesn’t give it back; I loose out on revenue I would have otherwise received from them. If someone uses the car I own without my permission and doesn’t give it back; I am out thousands of dollars, I have no means to get to work, and no means of purchasing groceries. Stealing is not black and white and rules and regulations should reflect that.
- mLuby 8y agoWhat?! Stealing is a super simple concept: what the owner will not give, the thief takes anyway. You could try to argue theft in contexts where the owner's willingness to give is ambiguous is not clear-cut (eg taking one piece of candy from the jar is fine but taking all the candy is theft), but that's ambiguity in communication and cultural convention, not in the concept of theft itself.
- baybal2 8y ago1. Patent violation is already a commerce code offence 2. Same for trademark violation 3. Same for media products reproduction rights The only thing that this changes is that anybody indicted is automatically distanced from the state system, something you can consider a privilege actually... I knew an expat chemist here who had hard time declining very assertive solicitations for investments into her company from all kinds of state run funds, including ones ran by Norinco and PLAF out of all things. Her product was a variable viscosity fluid that was said to have a world record for vibration dissipation. So vexatious they were, she had to hire a lawyer to find good excuses for not taking their money, without losing any of perks, and access to government tenders. In the end, she went on taking money and facilities access from the infamous "plan 3315," and now has to spend more time hauling legal papers than actually running her factory.
- progers7 8y agoWhat is plan 3315?
- baybal2 8y agoA borderline bribe like incentive program for foreign scientists, and businessmen to set up shops in second tier cities in China, a part of this initiative http://www.1000plan.org/ http://www.1000plan.org/ Effectively free 3 million bucks for a pretty business plan and reputation for as long as you are a foreigner. For this very reason people call it out for throwing money away, and questioning why they can't spend that much on China's own talent.
- fspeech 8y agoIf you are curious about what is actually announced, here is the original document: http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201812/W020181204527760656065.pdf http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/gzdt/201812/W020181204527760656065.pd...
- yorwba 8y agoThanks, very interesting. It appears that there are no direct financial penalties, only indirectly through restrictions on government subsidies and issuing stock, as well as increased scrutiny in general and especially regarding patent applications, all mediated via the social credit system, including the much-discussed travel restrictions. At least that's my take based on my middling understanding of Chinese.
- fspeech 8y agoThis is mostly pertaining to administrative cases, which can be quickly resolved. I am surprised there is actually such a thing in China. These are not court cases so they don't have the same power. It seems here they are trying to enhance the power of administrative resolutions through the credit system. You are entitled to whatever financial penalty you can get from the courts if you go through the court system, but court cases will take longer. In the US patent cases, which are highly technical in nature, can take a very long time to resolve, the upside being that very large damages could be awarded. In China it seems they aim for smaller awards (mainly injunctive relief) and quicker resolution.
- est 8y ago> It appears that there are no direct financial penalties, It goes with the infamous "credit system", which if you are on the watch list, you can't take first class trains nor planes, your kids can't go to schools with a loan. Damn!
- soyoha 8y agoChina also just scheduled fentanyl as a controlled substance. This is after China promised the Obama administration they’d curb the supply of the drug. The NYTimes said that tens of thousands of Americans have died from Chinese-sourced fentanyl. I don’t understand how American startups can take money from China, or how Google and others can work with them. They’re in a soft war with us, have a 100 year plan yet we’re all so naive.
- disinfo_chk 8y agoRe: the soft war, I think perhaps the biggest threat is the disinformation campaigns being run by various worldwide entities, including the Chinese. This is one of the best summaries I've seen about democratic governments as they contrast to 'soft' totatalitarian countries like Russia and China. This is why we all want to live in democracies. https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/contrasting-chinas-russias-influence-operations/ https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/contrasting-chinas-russias... The operational differences, for all their practical implications, may be less important than the simple recognition that Beijing and Moscow both approach influence operations and active measures as a normal way of doing business. The United States approaches covert action as something distinct from the routine business of foreign policy, requiring special authorities and oversight or legal arguments over whether Title 10 or Title 50 applies. This is simply not the case for the contemporary Chinese or Russian states. They still bear the hallmarks of their totalitarian and Leninist pasts.* I was going to comment on The Epoch Times and China Daily (two English language papers that are tools to run influence operations), but let's leave that one for another day and just recognize that we need real, honest, truth-seeking media to have a democracy, and democracies need to figure out how to deal with our new media environment that is penetrated by disinformation.
- yourbandsucks 8y agoIt's very recent that there's even a fiction of oversight for US covert actions. Look at the history of Latin America. "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" -- still true 2400 years later.
- starbeast 8y ago
- jorblumesea 8y agoWhat good is any IP law(s) if we know they won't be enforced? The idea that China is going stop their IP theft is ridiculous.
- slics 8y agoWhat about when the Chinese country itself violates the IP rules? They can’t just punish themselves. So ironic, they will punish a few on the cover, but they will continue their old practice of steeling under the covers.
- fspeech 8y agoChinese trademarks, patents and copyrights are monopolies granted by the Chinese government (note, not the US government) to rights owners and have power only within China.
- bwb 8y agoI would like to announce that I am the king of America... Now lets see the actual results.
- waynecochran 8y agoNo China will enforce IP laws. And a little bit later, monkeys will fly out of my butt.
- dang 8y agoPlease don't do this here.
- waynecochran 8y agoI knew it was wrong. I couldn't help myself.
- qxi 8y agoI see that you, too, are a fan of Emperor Norton :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Norton
- ggm 8y agoWhile the world economy worked on real goods property had good understanding. services and intellectual property are challenging because ideas are ephemeral yet persist, and we have only social constructs to constrain them. "I have the cake you don't unless you pay me" is very distinct from "You are not allowed to sing happy birthday without paying me" One is an absolute. The cake is and moves. The other is an idea. You get rent from me expressing an Idea. Do I have to pay if I hum it inside my head? Do I have to promise not to tell anyone in written form? What if I change more than 90% of the notes but keep one theme? I know this is a reductionist example, but IPR is like this: it has the terrible quality which goes to Patent process or patents over mathematics or physics. If you discover a specific dopant applied for a specific period of time in a specific way to silicon increases yield by 10%, Once the world knows this, why are you paid for the IPR licence time? If its to profit on the investment for research, remember that a huge amount of research is paid out of tax, not by investment returns. What if the counter parties invent a minor twist, or a related IPR moment? Yes.. people trade IPR rights, and collect IPR rights into agencies like the MP3 assciation. This is a huge cancer on society. Its like CFDs. Its leveraging money moments out of thought. International trade in real goods demands cheap. IPR demands rent which is "not cheap" -So the US demands for IPR rents on goods made in china, is like cutting your nose to spite your face: If you drive China to pay IPR taxes, you will drive china to seek IPR inside itself to avoid the taxes and charge YOU to copy them. Better to have no IPR taxes than enforce payment.
- whatshisface 8y agoWhen the world economy worked on real goods, people frequently started wars to take them.
- criley2 8y agoI feel like your (and most) anti-intellectual property arguments are built on terrible strawman, so let's go through your terrible strawman. >One is an absolute. The cake is and moves. The other is an idea. You get rent from me expressing an Idea. Do I have to pay if I hum it inside my head? Obviously not, and to suggest that intellectual property laws would require rent payments for thinking about a song is so odious and unfair that the speaker must be assumed to be acting outside of the realm of honest discourse. >Do I have to promise not to tell anyone in written form? ? How is your concept of intellectual property so divorced from reality? In what country does one make a promise not to hum a song to a rights holder in written form? This beggars belief that you are anything other than some uninformed radical. >What if I change more than 90% of the notes but keep one theme? As with all of intellectual property, unless you are attempting to commercialize your idea, you aren't going to be seriously targeted for using someone's intellectual property. I struggle to treat this post as anything but the uninformed ramblings of a true radical. I mean, could you at least pretend to have a real world understanding of intellectual property when you create your examples? Here's a question for you: Have you ever created anything in your life with value that could be protected by intellectual property laws (copyright, trademark, patent, etc)? Have you ever created anything of value and given it away? Or are these ruminations about intellectual property purely hypothetical?
- SuperNinKenDo 8y agoOf all the issues with China, this is the one I least support a "solution" to. Adding to the arsenal of pretexts the Chinese government can selectively hold over its subject's heads.
- doombolt 8y agoI didn't know you could just skip this bullet point, get away with it. Makes me wonder why we ever did it. After all, "Intellectual Property" is just a way to siphon money from my country while making our lives miserable. It's not like we ever got anything useful in the return.
- known 8y agoIsn't IP governed by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Organization
- anticensor 8y agoIt is governed by World Intellectual Property Organization, which is a UN body.
- zachguo 8y agohmm. China gonna play the IP game. Watch more patent trolls coming out of China.
- netcan 8y agoThe china-ip stuff is curious, and the conclusions (if this does conclude) are likely to be impactful for a generation. Why would a country want to make laws that creates a type of property which they don't have as much of? The US & Europe had been framing it as a necessary system, which China needs as much as they do. At some point, the frame changed to more of a moralistic one. This has been convincing (in the west) largely because China had no declared position. They unenthusiastically nod along but avoid enforcement. Now, we have a more trumpish dealmaking frame. This implies that ip laws are not good for China, and that it'll take carrots or sticks to get agreement. Me... I don't think up as it is is anywhere near optimal, from either a moral or economic dynamism perspective. Curious to see how this all works out.
- groestl 8y ago> Why would a country want to make laws that creates a type of property which they don't have as much of? Because, as you say yourself, it hopes to create that kind of property?
- netcan 8y agoWell.. they definitely hope to create intellectual output. I'm not sure they need to wrap it around an IP system inspired by the western one.
- bloak 8y agoI read the article, but I still can't work out what it's talking about. What does "Intellectual-Property Theft" mean? Are we talking about trade secrets, copyrights, or what? (Surely they can't mean patents?) Are the writers stupid, or are they deliberately trying to confuse the readers?
- fipple 8y agoLOL, Trump is Xi’s 365-day Christmas present.
- rataata_jr 8y agoIsn't that Ironic?