Copyright piracy has reached alarming level in China, India

An influential Congressional caucus in a latest report has expressed concern over alarming level of copyright piracy in four countries China, Russia, Switzerland and India. It has added India to the 2014 Watch List. The report "2014 International Piracy Watch List," by International Creativity and Theft-Prevention Caucus highlights the high levels of piracy and the lack of legal protections for copyright in China, Russia, Switzerland and India. "India continues to present a seriously flawed environment for the promotion of copyright and Intellectual Property," the report said. Accordingly, the Caucus has added India to the 2014 Watch List, and notes that the Special 301 Report again lists India as a Priority Watch List nation and announced the intent to conduct an Out-of-Cycle Review of Indian progress later this year. "Despite a large domestic creative industry in film, music, and other copyright intensive industries, India continues to lag badly in both the legal framework for protection of IP and enforcement priorities. Among the continuing issues in India are extremely high rates of camcording piracy, high levels of unlicensed software use by enterprises, and a lack of effective notice-and-takedown procedures for online piracy," the report said. "Whether it is movie makers, musicians, or and app makers, our economy is based upon the principle that property should be respected not stolen and this right does not end at the water's edge. This is not only fair, but it is good economics," said Congressman Adam Schiff. "That's why we started the Watch List ? to alert those who are profiting by stealing the hard work of American creators and the countries helping them that we are paying attention and we expect our trading partners to protect intellectual property rights. Our creative industries employ millions of Americans and are some of our most competitive exports. All we want is a level playing field where all nations live up to their obligations to protect intellectual property and enforce existing laws," he said. PTI