US says 9 countries failing to stem copyright piracy

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is accusing China, Russia, and seven other nations of failing to protect American producers of movies, computer software, and other copyrighted material from widespread piracy.

The administration yesterday placed the nine countries on a "priority watch list" that will subject them to extra scrutiny and could eventually lead to economic sanctions, if the administration decides to pursue complaints before the World Trade Organization.

In addition to China and Russia, the countries targeted were Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand, and Venezuela.

The administration named another 31 countries to a lower-level watch list, indicating it has concerns about copyright violations in those nations, but they don't warrant the highest level of scrutiny.

Because of improvements in their efforts to protect US intellectual property rights, four countries - Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and Ukraine - were taken off the priority list, where they were last year, and placed on the lower-level watch list.

In releasing the annual report, which is required by Congress, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said copyright piracy is "one of the central challenges facing the global economy."

"Pirates and counterfeiters don't just steal ideas, they steal jobs and too often they threaten our health and safety," she said in a statement.

This year's report devoted attention to what it described as the growing problem of counterfeited pharmaceuticals and other products that it said threaten the health and safety of consumers worldwide.

Stan McCoy, assistant US trade representative for intellectual property, told reporters in a briefing that both China and Russia had made improvements in protecting intellectual property over the past year, but that a number of issues remain.