EU Will Not Join U.S.’s China Piracy Complaint

BEIJING/BRUSSELS, April
13: The European Union will not join the U.S.’s complaint to the World Trade
Organization against China over the rampant piracy in that market, wire reports
indicate.

According to Reuters,
Viviane Reding, the EU’s Information Society and Media Commissioner, believes
that talks would be more fruitful than legal action. "We will follow it as
observers,” she is quoted as saying at a news conference in Beijing. “We will
try in bilateral discussions and bilateral talks to find solutions with our
Chinese counterparts.”

Reding continued:
"We agree with the substance, and that IPR [intellectual property rights] has to be preserved and that there has to be fair remuneration for those who
have invested in research and development or for the copyright of those
creating content. [But] we do not at this moment think that it is time for the
European Union to go to the WTO court."

Earlier this week, the
U.S. government filed two complaints against China with the WTO for failing to
adequately tackle the piracy problem and for putting up barriers to the entry
of legitimate U.S. films, books and software.