G8 piracy statement
p2p news / p2pnet: You can expect to see an almost immediate increase in so-called crack-downs against p2p file sharers and companies such as AllofMP3.com, the small firm Russian firm with the temerity to offer music downloads at a fair and reasonable price.
Because the US, France, Japan, Germany, Canada, Italy, the UK and Russia weren’t the only countries at the G8 conference in Russia. Also present were the major movie corporate studio, record label and software cartels who, thanks to their huge and ongoing propaganda and bribery campaigns, have successfully taken on the mantles of nationhood, frequently exercising as much power as any country.
Counterfeiting is illegal but on the scale of things, it should carry far less weight than political or police corruption, let’s say, or corporate roles in censorship, .
However, the G8 chose not to issue a public proclamation on these or other matters of serous world concern. Instead comes a statement with a headline which could have come out of any Hollywood, record label or software company PR office: Combating IPR Piracy and Counterfeiting.
‘Pirating’ in cartel parlance is file sharing, a 21st century phenomenon loathed and detested by the movie studios and record labels in particular who claim it’s "devastating" them, without a shred of evidence that this is so. Instead, the multi-billion-dollar companies continue to report increased profits.
Duplicating something for resale on world blackmarkets and undergrounds undoubtedly has an adverse impact on the bottom lines of companies everywhere. But EMI, Vivendi Universal, Warmer Music and Sony BMG , the members of the Organized Music cartel, the Hollywood Big Six, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal or Disney, or the likes of Microsoft, are merely examples. Equally concerned are, no doubt, clothing manufacturers, companies which make watches and pens, and so on.
However, 90% of pressure has come from the entertainment industries, with the software firms close behind, and with the G8 statement as a catalyst, we can now confidently expect floods of florid and entirely self-serving ‘press’ pieces from the cartels calling for increased police efforts aimed at the p2p community and indeed anyone else who doesn’t toe the corporate bottom lines, preferring to buy fairly priced product made by companies other than the controlling conglomerates.
The Group of Eight countries will also be using taxpayer money to fund an OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) study on the alleged costs and damage of piracy and counterfeiting.
Here’s the G8 release:
Combating IPR Piracy and Counterfeiting
St.Petersburg, July 16, 2006
1. We reaffirm our commitment to strengthening individual and collective efforts to combat piracy and counterfeiting, especially trade in pirated and counterfeit goods and note that such efforts will contribute to the sustainable development of the world economy, including through innovations, as well as to health and safety of consumers all over the world.
2. Combating trade in pirated and counterfeit products is a complex problem which assumes, in the context of globalization, a transborder character, and can only be solved through individual and joint efforts by all nations and relevant international organizations. In that regard, we note the usefulness of international congresses and workshops devoted to effective protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.
3. To continue the anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting activities, we consider it necessary to enhance cooperation in that area among the G8 and other countries, as well as competent international organizations, notably the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Customs Organization, Interpol, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Council of Europe.
4. We consider it necessary to give priority to promoting and upholding laws, regulations and/or procedures to strengthen intellectual property enforcement, raising awareness in civil society and in the business community of the legal ways to protect and enforce intellectual property rights and of the threats of piracy and counterfeiting, and also to providing technical assistance in that area to developing countries. Close cooperation between law enforcement agencies, including customs authorities, is also of great importance.
5. We consider it necessary to take, in the near term, the following concrete measures which will form the basis of a G8 work plan on piracy and counterfeiting:
* to create in each G8 country a website providing businesses and individuals with information on mechanisms available and procedures necessary to secure and enforce their intellectual property rights in that country, on threats posed by piracy and counterfeiting to public health, safety and the national interests of countries, consumers and business communities, as well as on measures taken at the national and international levels to combat intellectual property rights violations, and on relevant legislation and law enforcement practices;
* to engage the OECD in preparing and focusing its report estimating the economic consequences of piracy and counterfeiting on national economies and right holders, and public health and safety;
* in cooperation with WIPO, WTO, OECD, Interpol and WCO to develop and begin implementing technical assistance pilot plans within the G8 in interested developing countries to build the capacity necessary to combat trade in counterfeit and pirated goods;
* to improve border enforcement through increased customs co-ordination and exchange of enforcement information and best practices designed to better target the trade of counterfeit goods and combat intellectual property crime at the borders, including by examining effective strategies already being implemented within the G8 Customs Administrations as models for broader cooperation;
* to prepare recommendations aimed at improving G8 member countries’ cooperative actions to combat serious and organized intellectual property rights crimes.
* We instruct our experts to study the possibilities of strengthening the international legal framework pertaining to IPR enforcement.
6. Taking into account the significant volume of global trade in pirated and counterfeit products which is often linked to organized crime, as well as economic, political and moral damage caused by intellectual property rights violations and crimes, we will continue to give priority to enhancing cooperation with a view to substantially reducing the global trade in pirated and counterfeit products, and to taking effective measures against transnational networks supporting such trade.
Also See:
music downloads – Big Music at G8 summit, July 15, 2006\
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July 18th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
“Pirating’ in cartel parlance is file sharing, a 21st century phenomenon loathed and detested by the movie studios and record labels in particular who claim it’s “devastating” them, without a shred of evidence that this is so.”
Even if it were true that someone was being devastaed (as was the passenger ship industry when the airplane arrived), file sharing does more for the propagation and enjoyment of culture than a limited selection of crap the record companies put out and the copyright laws put together.
Then we must ask: Was it not the purpose of the copyright to promote the makng and sharing of cultural works and is it not sharing the more impostant part of the purpose?
Again, we see a law (copyright) operating against it’s stated purpose and again the strong lobby profiteers wanting to make it worse in more countries, which, BTW, are not their own.
If profiteers had their way, we would still be traveling in ship to Europe and riding horses to get to work.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com