Piracy, Prejudice and Profit: A Perspective from US-China Intellectual Property Rights Disputes

Intellectual property scholars and US-China trade observers alike have spilled much ink on describing and explaining piracy and China's apparently "voracious appetite'' for it. Unfortunately, such extensive discussions tend to oversimplify the complicated picture by exaggerating only particular aspects of the piracy problem. As a consequence, those discussions have created widespread misconceptions that confuse the public as to the truth of the piracy phenomenon in general, and Chinese piracy in particular. This article examines the US-China piracy debate in a wider context and challenges the three most common misconceptions about piracy: (1) stronger intellectual property rights protection is necessarily beneficial to economic development; (2) piracy is primarily a problem of lack of law; and (3) intellectual property businesses cannot profit from piracy. The analysis of this article dictates a more rational use of government regulation, as well as business strategies for the benefit of individual business and, ultimately, for society.