In December 2004, China released new judicial interpretations on the IPR sections of their Criminal Code lowering the minimum thresholds required for criminal convictions against IPR violators. It remains to be seen if the new judicial interpretations will result in more criminal convictions or more convictions with higher sentences and have the intended affect of reducing infringement and piracy rates. The critical issue remains that China needs to assert the political will to enforce its IPR laws via administrative referrals to criminal prosecution, as well as criminal investigations, prosecutions and convictions.
In December 2004, Estonian police and customs signed a cooperation agreement on information exchange.
In December 2004, the Greek Government held an anti-piracy workshop in Thessaloniki in conjunction with the U.S. Mission and the Motion Picture Association of America Greece Office. Thessaloniki has become a piracy hub and the successful workshop raised awareness of the scope of the problem in Northern Greece and laid the groundwork for a follow-on Anti-Piracy Task Force. A week after the program, a police raid in two warehouses uncovered over 13,000 counterfeit CDs and over 500 pirated DVDs peddled on the streets of Thessaloniki.
In December 2004, Hong Kong's Customs and Excise Department established a task force to monitor and crack down on peer-to-peer (P2P) piracy over the Internet. In January 2005, the task force arrested a man in Hong Kong for uploading three U.S. movies to the Internet.
In December 2004, Kuwaiti Customs raided a huge DVD-R production operation, the first discovered in the Middle East.
In December 2004 the Kuwaiti Ministry of Commerce and Industry seized 10,000 DVDs and CDs from 10 Kuwaiti stores.
In Mauritius in December 2004, at the request of U.S. company Oakley, the Customs Department and the Police Anti-Piracy Unit carried out a "cleaning" exercise against counterfeit Oakley sunglasses in the local market, confiscating over $35,000 worth of counterfeit goods.
In December 2004, Moroccan Parliament passed amendments to its existing intellectual property legislation that brings Morocco into compliance with many of its TRIPs commitments.
Paraguay's Specialized Technical Unit (UTE) conducted a significant raid in Ciudad del Este in December 2004, one of 43 different operations in 2004 targeting importers and distributors of pirated and counterfeit goods.
In December 2004, Peru's National Police raided a Lima shopping center where pirated goods are sold, confiscating over $500,000 in pirated DVDs and CDs.
In December 2004 the Serbia and Montenegro State Union parliament passed a package of four new WTO TRIPS-compatible laws providing protection for copyrights, trademarks, designs, and topographies of integrated circuits.
