For years, the US has blamed lax policing in countries such as India for a boost to piracy. But India has finally managed to get Washington to acknowledge piracy in its backyard after it submitted a list of over 600 websites, including Google, Amazon, Orkut and Flixter, accusing them of violating the copyright law.
After at least three years of debate, the issue finally found a mention in the joint statement issued after the completion of India-US Trade Policy Forum, which talked about cooperation of the shared interest in "creative industries". US trade representative Michael Froman said piracy issues were being faced by both Hollywood and Bollywood.
For years, Froman's predecessors had been blaming India for piracy of Hollywood movies, pointing to CDs and DVDs sold at street corners. But it took a while for the US to admit that even the Indian music industry faced privacy-related problems.
When Indian authorities first raised the issue in 2011, the US failed to acknowledge it and said the websites were being handled in other countries, such as Russia. It took some effort from the government to actually convince the US that the sites were being hosted in the US.
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