Chinese factories are making even more pirated compact discs now than before China signed an agreement last year to stamp out piracy, representatives of American CD makers said Tuesday.
The 1995 agreement averted a trade war. Now U.S. officials are threatening even bigger sanctions because China has not stopped its production and export of millions of illegally copied CDs.
China is by far the world’s biggest CD pirate and the only country exporting pirated CDs worldwide, Eric Smith, president of the International Intellectual Property Alliance, told reporters at the U.S. Embassy.
The factories producing these CDs are the same ones that were operating before the agreement was reached, said Jay Berman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America.
The same operators are still taking enormous profits, he said. “These are plants that required investments of over $1 million,” he said.
With no political will to stop these factories, “the supply of pirated goods is greater today than it was one year ago,” he said.
U.S. officials say $2 billion in sanctions are possible against China.
Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky is negotiating this week in Beijing. The industry representatives also met with senior Chinese officials to back the U.S. position that the agreement must be carried out.
