Piracy: China Still in the Game

Nov. 15, 2010 — -- Whether there is illegally-copied computer software for sale on the streets of Beijing or "designer" merchandise offered to Americans online, China continues to be a major player when it comes to piracy.

"They aren't just selling counterfeit clothing or electronics," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said at an intellectual property conference in Hong Kong last week, according to Reuters. "They're selling defective and dangerous imitations of critical components, like brake pads, or everyday consumer goods, like toothpaste. They're conducting corporate espionage. They're pirating music, movies, games, software and other copyrighted works -- both on our cities' streets and online. And the consequences are devastating."

Last year, U.S. customs and other law enforcement agents made nearly 15,000 seizures of counterfeit goods, 80 percent of which came from China.

John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said piracy poses a triple threat to the United States.

"It robs industries of jobs, steals American innovation and know-how and fuels organized crime. It affects literally every segment of U.S. manufacturing and production and badly undermines U.S. competitive strength as an economic powers," he said.

ICE has offices in 46 countries including China, which he said was a chief source of counterfeit, pirated products, despite U.S.-Chinese efforts to combat the problem.

"The rise of the Internet has added a new domain to the problem," Morton said. "Before it was the corner of Fourth and Main. ... Perfume on street corners. ... Now you have occurrences in the cyberworld."

He said that counterfeiting had gotten worse and that the Internet had allowed for rapid growth.

"It's not just a teen downloading a song or a movie," Morton said in an interview with ABCNews.com. "It's about an assault on the economic fiber of the entertainment industry. About whether the engine in the aircraft you're flying on contains counterfeit parts. Whether medicine over the Internet is real, is safe."