[bee_rider]

Contracts and deals are subordinate to the laws of the country in which we'd like them to be enforced. It's not like a company goes to China and expects tight IP laws.

And hey, our (American) IP laws were a lot less strict when we were catching up to the British Empire.

Countries generally try to set their laws up to benefit their industries (to the extent possible).

[iancmceachern]

I agree with all this. Where does all the ip theft via hacking fall into this view? By this logic hat should be held accountable to the laws of this country, no?

Lots of links to Wikipedia lists of examples in other threads here.

[bee_rider]

I don't think it is possible to simplify it down beyond what has actually happened. Hackers for China in the US fall under US jurisdiction and so they'll be treated pretty harshly. Hackers for China in China -- it's complicated, if they are doing something their government wants them to do, they probably won't be.

Then the US will try to incur some diplomatic cost for China, which does have a pretty bad reputation on this front... it's all part of the big game.