每年，数百万件影片、电视节目和电脑软件等数字产品因盗版导致潜在的销售损失。东南亚是这类盗版活动的热门地区。

负责保护美国电影行业的机构美国电影协会（Motion Picture Association of America）与越南首都河内（Hanoi）的警方共同追查数千份被盗文件的线索，缉拿了有关人员。但因为相关的法律自相矛盾，起诉工作陷于瘫痪。

美国司法部（U.S. Department of Justice）的埃文·威廉姆斯（Evan Williams ）说，截至目前为止，几乎没有对侵犯版权案件提出刑事起诉。

随着越南政府积极要求按照新修订的知识产权法改善执法工作，美国司法部最近为越南全国各地120名法官提供知识产权方面的训练，特别注重如何对刑事侵权案件进行审理的问题。

今年10月参加河内训练班的法官邓雪明（Duong Tuyet Mien）说，越南目前的知识产权条例相当好，但是某些条文没有得到很好的阐释，导致执行方面的困难。

威廉姆斯说，他为训练班制定的课程是介绍美国对侵权案例的调查方法，其中涉及有关人员从头到尾在案件的每一个阶段协同工作。

他说，现在几乎每一个重大的知识产权案件都具有跨国性，为此调查工作不能只到边界为止，因为整个地区都有很多人涉案。他说，盗版者可以在一个国家建立网络伺服器，在另一个国家建立电子邮件伺服器，在第三国开设银行账户。

威廉姆斯说，因此训练班有必要纳入各司法辖区的法律专业人员，不论在国内还是国际范围内。几乎所有的大案都有证据表明多国作案的现象。

Millions in potential sales are lost annually to pirated digital content, from movies and TV shows to computer software. Southeast Asia is a hotbed for this kind of activity.

The Motion Picture Association of America (the body that protects the U.S. film industry) has worked alongside the Hanoi Police Department to trace thousands of stolen files to operators in Vietnam’s capital city. However, very few cases end in a conviction because conflicting laws leave prosecutors hamstrung.

“Up until now, there have been almost no criminal copyright infringement prosecutions,” said Evan Williams of the U.S. Department of Justice.

But that could be changing. Following a push by the Vietnamese government to improve enforcement of newly revised intellectual propertylaws, the U.S. Department of Justice recently trained 120 judges from across the country on intellectual property rights, in particular how to judge a criminal infraction.

“Vietnam’s current IP regulation is quite good,” says Judge Duong Tuyet Mien, who attended training sessions held in Hanoi this October. “But some provisions have not been well defined, leading to difficulty in enforcement.”

Williams said his goal for the training sessions was to pass along the U.S. method of infringement investigation, which involves people at every stage of a case working together from start to finish.

“Almost every major IP case these days is transnational,” he said, stressing how important it is that investigations not stop at the border, as many in the region do. He says most counterfeiters have a web server in one country, an email server in another country and bank accounts in a third country.

That’s why the training sessions included legal professionals from different jurisdictions, both domestic and international. “Almost all the big cases involve evidence in multiple countries,” Williams said.