12 Nations Put on Copyright Piracy List

A steam roller destroys DVDs at a publicity event in Xiangfan, in central China's Hubei province on World Intellectual Property Day Thursday April 26, 2007. Some 120,000 copies of pirated DVD's were destroyed in the activity, which was designed to show China's efforts to stamp out piracy. The flood of illegally copied music, movies and other goods from China is growing despite repeated crackdowns, two U.S. business groups said Thursday, appealing to Beijing to do more to stamp out the illicit industry. Rampant Chinese counterfeiting has worsened tensions with Washington, which filed a World Trade Organization complaint this month accusing Beijing of violating trade commitments by failing to stamp out the illicit industry. (AP Photo) (Str - AP)

"The report ignores important international agreements signed by the U.S. government ... which clearly state that developing countries have the right to place public health and the public interest over intellectual property rules," said Rohit Malpani, a policy adviser with Oxfam.

Neil Turkewitz, an official with the Recording Industry Association of America, said the administration was right to single out China and Russia for special criticism in the report.

He said that large-scale piracy of sound recordings was continuing unabated in China and that Russia was home to some of the biggest criminal enterprises involved in piracy of music as well as "some of the world's most notorious pirate Web sites such as allofmp3.com."

Dan Glickman, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, said the new report indicated "the scope of global piracy and serves as a sobering reminder of the challenges ahead."

The countries placed on a lower-level watch list were Belarus, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Jamaica, South Korea, Kuwait, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

In addition, the administration said that Paraguay would be subject to special monitoring to see if it is addressing copyright concerns.

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