Sunday, April 16, 2006

Pirates of the Far East

John has a nice piece in this morning's Observer.

"The one phrase you hear very little of whenever China's economic potential is discussed is 'intellectual property'. This is because China is world champion in every branch of piracy known to man. I don't think there's a CD, DVD, computer game or software package that is not illicitly available for a dollar or two in virtually every town in China...

For the past seven years, Canadian firm Research In Motion (RIM) has been planning to launch a version of its BlackBerry mobile email service in China. It filed its first application to do business there in 1999 and has since registered at least nine trademarks for the device and accompanying service.

And now, just a few weeks before the BlackBerry service launches, guess what happens? China Unicom, the state-controlled wireless network, has launched a rival service called - you got it - RedBerry."

No comments: