China, Russia, Canada again top USTR piracy list

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday placed Russia on its list of countries with the worst records of preventing copyright theft for the 13th straight year, just days after the two nations agreed to intensify talks on Moscow's bid to join the World Trade Organization.

The U.S. Trade Representative's office also put China on its "priority watch list" for the sixth consecutive year and Canada for the second. The list carries no threat of sanctions, but aims to shame governments into cracking down on piracy and updating their copyright laws.

"Intellectual property theft in overseas markets is an export killer for American businesses and a job killer for American workers here at home," U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said in a statement.

Algeria, Argentina, Chile, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, and Venezuela rounded out the priority watch list.

All the listed countries will be "the subject of particularly intense engagement through bilateral discussion during the coming year," USTR said.

The International Intellectual Property Alliance, which represents U.S. copyright industry groups, has estimated that U.S. trade losses due to piracy in more than three dozen countries surpassed $15.8 billion in 2009.

That included more than $3.5 billion in China, $1.9 billion in Russia, $1.5 billion in India, $1.1 billion in Italy, $978 million in Brazil and $710 million in Canada.

"With the U.S. and many other economies working to recover from the global fiscal crisis, our government needs to redouble its efforts to stem massive global theft of U.S. copyrighted works, whether in physical forms or on the Internet," IIPA President Eric Smith said in a statement.