Some of the items on the agrrement and my comments:
“The United States and Russia agreed on the objective of permanently closing down production of optical media containing pirated and counterfeit material.”.

Well, Sony has at leas 24 CDs with songs that belong to my family, without my family’s authorization. We sued in 2001 fro this. There is no controversy on the facts, yet no one has told Sony to stop. Meaning that the “closing down of production” is more or less bullshit, at leas in the USA.

“Russia will: inspect licensed plants regularly, day and night;”
This is not done in the USA, and record producers, including RIAA ones, routinely use music without any authorization from the copyright holders and do not pay any royalties as a result. Real piracy. There are about 75 records manufactured in the USA (24 by Sony) with our music, and not a single one has a license from us or has paid a single cent. Clearly the Russians will have to do what the Americans themselves do not do.

“Russial will: find and shut down unlicensed plants”
See above.

“Russia will: take criminal actions where there is evidence of commercial scale piracy.”
See above. My family went through a trial recently. We proved that two music publishers actually stole the music composed by my father. Of these stolen songs, 80 are currently registered in the music publisher’s name. What did the judge do? Nothing.

Clearly, American want other to do what they themselves do not do.

Rafael venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com

http://www.ustr.gov/assets/Document_Library/Fact_Sheets/2006/asset_upload_file151_9980.pdf