President Barack Obama announced during the State of the Union address Tuesday evening the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit to address trade problems, including the online piracy of intellectual property.
“It’s not right when another country lets our movies, music, and software be pirated. It’s not fair when foreign manufacturers have a leg up on ours only because they’re heavily subsidized,” said Obama. (RELATED: Full State of the Union coverage)
China has been recognized as a major source of American intellectual property theft. IP theft includes the piracy of movies, music, software, high-technology, pharmaceutical drugs and video games. IP theft also includes patents, trademarks and blueprints.
“Tonight, I’m announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China,” said Obama.
The Justice Department recently shut down popular file-sharing network MegaUpload. The takedown provoked the launch of the largest recorded attack by hacktivist collective Anonymous against websites for the DOJ, the FBI, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America.