Piracy

The Clinton administration has warned China to clamp down on copyright piracy as agreed last year or face stiff economic sanctions in the next few months, the New York Times reported in today's editions. The report said President Clinton's economic and trade advisors were especially concerned about 30 Chinese compact disc factories that export millions of dollars of goods pirated from the United States.

Undercover officers arrested two men and a woman on suspicion of selling illegal cable decoders to Paragon Cable subscribers, police said Wednesday. Investigators estimated the cable company lost $9,000 to $20,000 in service fees. Garden Grove officers served a search warrant Tuesday at A & A Electronics in Sunset Beach and found two suspects with a modified cable box and small amounts of marijuana and LSD, police said.

A group of large software companies filed lawsuits this week accusing a Brea software store and five others across the country of illegally renting computer programs to customers. By allegedly renting software for a fraction of regular sales prices, View Plus Software in Brea has violated a 5-year-old federal law designed to curb piracy in the software industry, according to a suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana.

In yet another trade dispute with Japan--this time over music by recording stars ranging from the Four Tops to the Doors--the United States formally complained to the World Trade Organization on Friday about Tokyo's failure to observe foreign music copyrights prior to 1971. The period from 1946 to 1971, said U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, touting his Nashville heritage, was "one of the most vibrant and popular periods in the history of American music."

Police seized about 42,000 pirated compact discs and cassette tapes from a local storage locker Thursday, calling it one of the largest seizures of pirated music in Southern California. Santa Ana police said they found the tapes in a warehouse at 4918 W. 1st St. while following leads from the arrests last weekend of four people suspected of selling pirated music at the Orange Coast College Swap Meet in Costa Mesa. Most items seized Thursday--more than 35,000--were compact discs.

Chinese officials have taken a surprising tack in their crackdown on copyright pirates who churn out millions of dollars' worth of bogus compact discs and CD-ROMs, often under the protection of powerful local officials and untouchable gang bosses. In response to Washington's pressure to shut down the factories or allow more U.S. partners to monitor production, the Chinese appear to have put most of the heat on firms here with any American ties, including three with California links.

In a raid that was hardly a scene from an action flick, a tiny video store became the latest target of an increasingly aggressive campaign by the film industry to combat video piracy. By the time investigators from the Motion Picture Assn. of America finished sorting through Celebrity Video's inventory, roughly half of the store's English-language movies had been removed and packed into boxes marked "evidence."

A tiny store in the mid-San Fernando Valley became the latest target of an increasingly aggressive campaign by the film industry to combat video piracy. By the time investigators from the Motion Picture Assn. of America finished sorting through Celebrity Video's inventory, about half of the Arleta store's English-language movies had been removed and packed into boxes marked as evidence.