Content piracy like counterfeit currency is easy money, which can help one get rich fast but like cancer it is eating into the vitals of the entertainment industry.

How would you feel when flaunting your latest iPod acquisition you learn that your neighbor is carrying the same doodad that has been bought at half the price of what you paid. I definitely feel repugnant, first because he hackneyed me and second because I got double the monetary jolt. The price here is not the important factor, what is important is, whom do you choose to be, yourself or the aforesaid neighbor?

US To Haul China Before WTO For Protecting Entertainment Industry

Hollywood is one place where big money finances filmmaking but piracy has hit the industry hard and profits have dwindled. The lobby has pushed the American government to act against violators. To protect domestic content producers against global piracy, the US for one has decided to drag China, considered to be one of the largest piracy infested country, before the World Trade Organization in order to discipline trade relations.

America’s growing worldwide trade deficit of $765.3 billion has forced the government to act against nations that have eaten into the profits of their industries. The trade deficit vis-a-vis China at $232.5 billion is one of the largest. The Motion Pictures Association of America in an assessment estimated the loss of American revenue to copyright pirates in China at $ 2.3 billion.

To reduce this huge deficit, which threatens the stability of US economy itself, the complaint with WTO against China about piracy of American movies, music CDs and software could be used to impose stiff trade barriers for other products. Only recently the US raised tariffs on Chinese gloss paper to protect domestic industry. Of every ten CDs sold in the Chinese market, nine are pirated. Tackling the problem is a stupendous task for any agency.

The Americans’ grouse is that the Chinese government by imposing restrictions on import of foreign books and films only encourage business in pirated editions and on the other hand, the threshold of piracy committed, that is punishable under crime, is so high that virtually none comes within its ambit.

The Supreme Court of China has tried to address American concerns by lowering piracy threshold levels but a similar exercise in 2004 did not help to reign in the problem.

US trade deficit may have pushed them to act against China but piracy is a global phenomenon. Though the Americans are voraciously campaigning against the Chinese, a meticulously developed piracy market exists back at home.

Now the all-important question is why piracy is able to survive and can a nation control it?

Piracy is able to survive on sheer economics. New technologies facilitate sharing of content without seeking patent permissions and cheaper products outsell expensive copyrighted material.

Policing the worldwide web is hard for any country and so is checking out what is being burned on each CD or DVD writer in any given locality, city or country. It makes any nation’s task of controlling piracy near impossible. Permitting cheaper imports to compete with pirated ones can help to contain the problem to some extent.

In all this, the entertainment industry is facing an onslaught that may destroy its very foundation. Producing good films or creating good music besides requiring creative excellence needs capital to develop and market the content. Unless the proceeds generated do not reach the artist or the people backing the content generated, creative talent will cease to create quality content for the survival of the artist is at stake.

Piracy only helps people other than those who created the product to profit.