IFPI issues statement on USTR action on China

"The international recording industry fully supports the U.S. government's decision to initiate a WTO dispute against China. China is a hugely exciting potential market for record companies, but it is also the source of the world's biggest piracy problem. Record companies are eager to invest there, to develop local artists internationally, to bring international music to Chinese audiences and to stimulate economic partnership with Chinese industries. This is impossible until China does more to improve the legal landscape on which the music industry depends to do its business.



"We recognize that China has made efforts in recent years to step up copyright enforcement. However, to achieve durable and meaningful improvement and to bring China into line with international rules, certain legal reforms and changes to enforcement practices are needed. These reforms, which affect the basis on which criminal prosecutions can be brought in China, would help remove key obstacles that currently hinder enforcement against pirate operators. We hope that the proceedings announced by the USTR today will lead to these required improvements, from which copyright-based industries internationally, including in China, stand to benefit."