Copyright protects literary and artistic works such as novels, poems,
plays, films, musical works, drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures
and architectural designs. People have interests in protecting the investments
made in various forms of intellectual property. If intellectual property is not
protected, there will be a great deal to be lost. Piracy and counterfeiting are
major problems associated with criminal organization and they adversely
affect business and consumers.
Recently Asian countries have enacted the IP laws by adopting the
laws from western countries. However, the lack of implementation of IP
laws in Asian countries has become apparent and has caused the great
economic loss in some countries, mainly in United States.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the IP rights in China as a case
study. It also focuses on the violations of copyright law due to the high rate of piracy in China. The first part of this paper is a brief history introduction of copyright law in China. The second part is how piracy adversely affects the business in U.S. The third part is an overview of China’s IP enforcement and some of the major problems. The forth part is to provide some possible solutions to the piracy problem.