What spurs a country that otherwise looks the other way at piracy and counterfeiting to suddenly crack down on the crime? The same thing that drives the world — self-interest.

Just as India could see greater gains if it provided greater copyright protection to Bollywood, so will China benefit economically if there isn't a rampant trade in counterfeit Olympics merchandise, as the Washington Post reports today on its front page. Counterfeiting in China costs the US an estimated $3-$4 billion annually, but the prospect of seeing the five official plush toys of the 2008 Summer Olympics has China changing its tune, as Maureen Fan writes:

But the Olympics have mobilized China's piracy police like never before.
Beijing, the host city, stands to receive up to 15 percent of all revenue from
Olympic merchandise, a figure expected to easily top the $62 million raised in
Athens four years ago. 

Moving beyond the Olympics, self-interest could be the way China improves on IP. Until now, its self-interest has been to keep China's population happy with inexpensive knock-offs. But in recent years, China has made it clear it doesn't want to forever be known to the world's children as the company that makes Happy Meal toys. After years of partnership with GM, China is branching out on its own in developing sophisticated automobiles. It is investing in science, even in space research. In other words, it wants to be an advanced economy with diverse industries.

At that point, self-interest calls for intellectual property protection, and as China protects its own creative works, US-made goods will stand a better chance of protection.

Self-interest is the core of the copyright debate. Creators act in their own self-interest; they want to preserve the rights given to them in the Constitution, and create knowing those rights are there. Consumers act in their own self-interest, seeking the easiest, cheapest way to enjoy creative works without thinking too much about the creators themselves.

The challenge for creators is not go get consumers to see their point of view; many will, but not all. The challenge is to, while preserving their rights, offer creative works to consumers that comes as close as possible to meeting consumers' self-interest. The key part of that sentence, though, is that creators, through exercise of their rights, drive the process.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 9:11 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under international, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.