I feel sorry sometimes for the IP authorities here. No, let me finish. Stop laughing.

As I have pointed out for years, the system here has made great strides in legal reform, education, and in certain areas of enforcement. Depending on the geographical area and the kind of IP involved, enforcement can work pretty well in many cases. Big problems persist, but you have to acknowledge the good stuff.

Despite this progress, the international community has continued beating China over the head about weak enforcement. When pointing out legitimate problems, this seems reasonable, but often this criticism is overblown and, in the recent words of Tian Lipu of SIPO, "politicized".

One of the ways that IP infringement is hyped by critics is to take statistics for a particular industry (e.g. recording industry or movie studios) and gently suggest that their dire situation is indicative of the state of affairs for all types of IP in all industries nationwide. Another way of saying this is: "Hey, I can buy a newly-released theatrical on DVD for a buck anywhere in Beijing. IP enforcement here is a joke." Not accurate, but it makes for a good headline.

The government here is sensitive to PR and lobbying by foreign governments, so they go after digital product infringement in a splashy way – probably doesn’t make much of a dent in the piracy rate, but it makes for good press. They have new campaigns, publish stats on how many CDs and DVDs were confiscated, etc.

But then there is stuff like this, from Catching Mice in China:

The existing business models of the entertainment and software industries are wilting under the bright glare of the internet. Piracy will become less and less of an issue in this generation.

It’s the technology patents, commercial brands, and industrial designs, both foreign and domestic, that China should focus on protecting.

I agree 100%, this is substantively correct, but this kind of criticism is problematic for two reasons. First, China has been doing all of those things related to technology for a long time and has made significant progress – it’s not being ignored. Second, if China shifts more resources to those areas and away from those splashy stupid public campaigns against digital piracy, they will get a huge amount of additional bad press from the MPAA, RIAA, BSA and the U.S. and EU governments.

From a resource management point of view, Beijing gets yelled at whatever they spend their money on. As I said, I sometimes feel sorry for these guys. On other occasions, I do admit that some of the China-as-victim rhetoric goes a bit too far.