The Hong-Kong director Wayne Wang has announced that he will be premiering his latest film for free on YouTube today.
Wang, best known for “The Joy Luck Club”, has said his latest drama, “The Princess of Nebraska” will be available at youtube.com/ytscreeningroom, a channel dedicated to film content.
The drama “is based on a story by Beijing-born writer Yiyun Li, about a Chinese exchange student in America who finds herself pregnant.”
The move is something not usually seen in Hollywood, especially due to piracy concerns.
Recently the Oscar-winning independent film-maker Michael Moore released his latest film, “Slacker Uprising,” for free via his site and torrents.
Result for: piracy concerns
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has made a split decision on a year old complaint filed by the US against China over piracy concerns.
The panel concluded that China was responsible for not prosecuting pirates who copy CDs and DVDs. The news was not all good for the US however as the panel also concluded that
“Chinese thresholds for prosecuting piracy do not break WTO rules.”
The thresholds allow pirates of anything from clothing to medicine to avoid any prosecution as long as it is under 500 infringing copies.
A third issue, that of whether “seized goods can be reintroduced into the market if the infringing material is removed” was more confusing but a US trade official says the US won on that count.
Washington has been complaining for years that China is a safe haven for product piracy, especially on a commercial scale. “Over the past several years, China has taken tangible steps to improve (intellectual property rights) protection and enforcement. However, we still see important gaps that need to be addressed,” Sean Spicer, spokesman for U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, said in a statement last year.
China has said that the case being brought to the WTO could possibly damage trade relations between the countries. The US is the largest importer from China for all types of products.
Result for: piracy concerns
This morning Microsoft announced it had filed 21 federal lawsuits against resellers it believes are selling pirated copies of Windows and Office software.
The software giant added that the companies that are being sued are selling PCs which are pre-installed with unlicensed copies. Eight of the companies were already sued for the same issue and settled the past lawsuits.
For most of the cases, Microsoft learned of the piracy from customers using the company’s piracy hotline. Some of the computers also failed the company’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) online validation tool for legitimate Microsoft software.
“These legal actions are about protecting Microsoft’s customers from falling victim to some dealers who operate a business model of peddling pirated and counterfeit software,” Microsoft attorney Sharon Cates said in a statement. “Some companies previously involved in these lawsuits have discontinued their illegal business practices; others have not.”
Six of the companies are from California, two in Texas, two in Washington, and others around the country in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
