RIAA Calls Upon Brazil, Russia, Pakistan And Others To Redouble Efforts To Protect Intellectual Property

July 02, 2004

BACKGROUND: The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) announced decisions today on petitions filed by U.S. copyright industries, including RIAA, to deny Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) benefits to a variety of countries for their failure to adequately protect copyrighted materials. GSP is a program created in 1974 under which more than 140 beneficiary economies export products duty-free to the United States. One of the statutory criteria for eligibility under the GSP program is that the recipient country provides adequate and effective intellectual property protection. USTR announcements concern Russia, Brazil, Pakistan, the Dominican Republic and Lebanon. While the trade representative's office did not act to remove GSP from any of the concerned countries, they either initiated (in the case of Pakistan) or continued (in the case of Russia, Brazil and Lebanon) investigations that will lead to the removal of GSP benefits if more effective action is not forthcoming. The already on-going investigation with respect to the Dominican Republic was terminated based on express commitments to address piracy made by the Dominican Republic within the Free Trade Agreement process. Neil Turkewitz, Executive V.P., International, today issued the following statement.

RUSSIA
USTR announced the continuation of the investigation without further comment. Russia currently fails to provide adequate and effective protection as contemplated under the GSP program. It would have been more appropriate to remove Russia's eligibility for GSP, and to restore it if and when Russia took effective action to remedy the situation. Nevertheless, the Administration must have had reason to believe that Russia would be taking immediate steps to address a situation that has grown out of control. We call upon the government of Russia to quickly redeem these hopes, and to take urgently needed action to address a piracy problem that gravely affects Russian and foreign creators alike. We hope that the Russian government takes swift action based on a recognition that piracy undermines Russia's standing in the global community and precludes WTO accession; harms Russia's creators; inhibits its cultural and economic development; and permits the operation of organized criminal syndicates, thereby undermining the rule of law. The pirate production, distribution and export of optical discs in and from Russia have reached epidemic proportions, and effects more than 25 markets around the globe. If immediate and forceful action is not taken, we urge the U.S. government to terminate the investigation with a finding that Russia fails to provide protection as required under the GSP program, and remove Russia from the list of countries eligible to participate in the GSP program.

BRAZIL
Citing acknowledgement in recent U.S.-Brazil discussions of shared concerns over high levels of piracy, USTR announced a 90-day extension of the investigation into Brazil's practices. Like Russia, Brazil does not currently provide the kind of protection contemplated under the GSP program, and RIAA believes that it would have been more appropriate to remove Brazil's eligibility to participate in the GSP program, and to restore such eligibility only when or if Brazil took action that warranted such restoration. Nevertheless, USTR has sent a strong message to Brazil that its GSP benefits are at risk if it does not take decisive action over the next three months to effect greater control over a surging piracy problem. Just last week, a special investigative committee of the Brazilian Congress (the CPI) issued a report containing a variety of very specific anti-piracy recommendations, and expressing significant criticism of the Brazilian government's efforts to date. The work of the CPI over the past year -- both its investigations which led to the arrest of Brazil's most notorious alleged pirate, as well as its recommendations to the Executive Branch -- demonstrate that there is an understanding of the scope of the problem, its impact on Brazilian creators and society, and, perhaps most importantly, that the problem is not beyond Brazil's capacity to address. We call on the Lula Administration to take these recommendations to heart, and to act quickly and decisively in implementing them. Such action will both restore an environment that will promote Brazil's cultural heritage and diversity, and will alleviate tension between the United States and Brazil on these matters. As is clear from the CPI report, the U.S. and Brazil share a common interest in protecting the arts. We hope that Brazil's actions over the next three months and beyond will reflect this interest.

PAKISTAN
RIAA appreciates and supports the U.S. government's decision to initiate an investigation as to whether Pakistan provides adequate and effective intellectual property protection. This decision was taken in response to a petition submitted by the International Intellectual Property Alliance, a coalition to which RIAA belongs. Piracy of copyrighted products in Pakistan has skyrocketed, destroying the market for legitimate product in Pakistan, and, via exports, has severely disrupted the legitimate market in many other countries. Pakistani producers manufactured an estimated 180 million pirate optical discs in 2003, most of which were exported (to an astonishing 46 countries). In our view, Pakistan clearly fails to provide adequate and effective intellectual property protection. Therefore, it is most appropriate that the U.S. government initiated this investigation. RIAA will participate fully in the process.

LEBANON
We take note of the U.S. government’s decision to continue its GSP investigation of whether Lebanon should continue to receive GSP benefits. Copyright piracy remains rampant in Lebanon, yet its government has taken very few steps to address it. Sound recording piracy remains over 70 percent. The U.S. government should press to conclude this investigation and, unless the government of Lebanon significantly increases enforcement, conclude that Lebanon fails to provide adequate and effective intellectual property protection.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
We note that the U.S. government’s decision to terminate its GSP investigation of the Dominican Republic is based the commitments that the country has taken in conjunction with the recently concluded U.S. – Central American FTA. RIAA appreciates that the Dominican Republic agreed in the FTA to provide strong copyright and enforcement protection. In that context, the government of the Dominican Republic committed to take significant steps to address its long-standing and systematic delays in imposing meaningful criminal sanctions against those major copyright pirates in the Dominican Republic. We look forward to such action.

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