authorities. The United States has requested WTO dispute settlement on several market access barriers affecting U.S. copyright industries.
Right holders report that in the seven years since China's current Copyright Law was adopted, China has yet to set a rate under Article 42 of that law for the remuneration of right holders for the use of their works by radio or television broadcasters. This has resulted in the unauthorized and, thus far, uncompensated broadcasting of musical works, prejudicing right holders in China and the United States. The United States urges China to set a fair rate for compensation under Article 42 of its Copyright Law without further delay, and to apply that rate to all of the broadcasts of works that have occurred since 2001.
Retail and wholesale counterfeiting in China is a major source of frustration for international brand owners. In spite of significant attention and resources from brand owners, administrative supervision, civil lawsuits, agreements with landlords, and attention from China's central government and foreign governments, counterfeiting remains pervasive in many retail and wholesale markets. It appears that further measures, including criminal sanctions, will be necessary to bring this problem under control.
In addition to stepping up administrative and criminal action against trademark counterfeiting at the manufacturing, wholesale, and retail levels, the United States calls on China to launch and publicize significant administrative and criminal enforcement actions against optical media piracy, Internet piracy, software end-user piracy, and other forms of piracy affecting U.S. copyright owners.
The United States recognizes that China recently announced a 2008 Action Plan laying out detailed strategies for improving IPR protection. China has the opportunity to achieve real and transparent results for U.S. right holders through implementation of the Action Plan. The United States has worked with China in the past few years on many legislative and policy efforts, including the National IPR Strategy, Internet Regulations, antimonopoly law and patent and trademark law reform. We welcome continued engagement on these issues including transparency and fair opportunities for the public and foreign governments to comment on proposed laws and policies.
The United States also looks forward to working with China to examine a variety of other reforms that would contribute to improving IPR enforcement. In addition to reforming China's criminal laws as discussed above, other areas that China should explore include the positive results that could be achieved through specialized national IPR courts and prosecutors (expanding a practice that already exists in some areas); reducing pendency and backlog in trademark opposition and cancellation proceedings; introducing regulatory mechanisms to ensure that active pharmaceutical ingredients produced in China are not used in counterfeit medicines; implementing effective, detailed plans and strategies for reducing the use of infringing materials by students, staff, and lecturers on school and university campuses; and ensuring that the resources available to local administrative, police, and judicial authorities charged with protecting and enforcing IPR are adequate to the task.
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