South Korea Added to List of Pirate-Friendly Nations; May Face Sanctions

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on January 9, 2004 - 3:53am.

Washington -- The Bush administration on Thursday added South Korea, a nation where two-thirds of the residents have high-speed Internet access, to its "priority watch list" of countries that have lax protection against music and movie piracy, The Washington Post reported. South Korea is now among countries including Russia, Taiwan and India that the U.S. has asked to pass tougher anti-piracy laws and foster enforcement or else face trade sanctions. "Open markets and the protection of intellectual property are critical to the continued growth of our economy, and we'll vigorously press our trading partners to follow the rules," said U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick. "We express the position that it is very disappointing and regrettable," Hyunju Lee, counselor for economic affairs at the South Korean embassy, told The Times. "We did our best effort and made substantial improvements in the [intellectual property] protection area in cooperation with the U.S. during the last year. In view of that, we cannot understand why they added us to the watch list."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1633-2004Jan8.html