Online piracy

“ The United States urges Russia to provide stronger enforcement against piracy and counterfeiting, which remain major concerns. The U.S. copyright industries estimate a loss in excess of $2.7 billion in 2008 due to copyright infringement, especially through online piracy, which has become an acute problem. Despite having closed down some illegal websites offering pirated music, many more have sprung up in their place. ”

“ The United States views the few ad hoc and nontransparent government actions against online piracy as underscoring the need for Ukraine to establish a predictable and transparent system to combat online piracy. Enhanced interagency coordination, consultation with all affected stakeholders and targeted legal reforms to provide clarity and predictability are necessary to creating an adequate and effective strategy to combat online piracy. ”

“ The Action Plan also reflects a commitment to support legislation addressing online piracy. The United States is encouraged that several legislative proposals are currently being considered, and urges Russia to enact an adequate and effective ISP liability system for copyright infringement to facilitate cooperation between rights holders and ISPs and combat the growth of illegal online markets for infringing goods. ”

“ Many countries provide penalties that fail to deter criminal enterprises engaged in global copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting operations. Even when such enterprises are investigated and prosecuted, the penalties imposed on them in many countries are low, and therefore, rather than deter further infringements, such penalties only add to the cost of doing business. Online sales of pirated and counterfeit goods have the potential to surpass the volume of sales through traditional channels such as street vendors and other physical markets. ”

“ This trend makes it all the more imperative that India incorporate into its legal system more effective measures to counter online piracy, including appropriate notice-and-takedown procedures and other efficient mechanisms for rights holders to seek removal of infringing content from websites, consistent with international best practices. ”

“ However, this phenomenon has also made the Internet an extremely efficient vehicle for disseminating copyright-infringing products, supplanting legitimate opportunities for rights holders. The U.S. Government's 2013 Notorious Markets List includes examples of online marketplaces reportedly engaging in commercial-scale IPR infringement, including sites hosted in or operated by parties located in Canada, China, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, and elsewhere.
Piracy over the Internet is a significant concern in many U.S. trading partners. ”

“ While optical disc copyright piracy is widespread, Internet piracy is a growing concern. Internet piracy rates approach 100 percent in several content areas. For example, Argentine-run Notorious Market cuevana.tv—offering pirated movies and TV shows—is the 75th most popular website in the country, with an estimated 150,000 visitors each day. As a result, IPR enforcement in Argentina consists mainly of rights holders trying to convince cooperative Argentine online providers to agree to take down specific infringing works, and attempting to seek injunctions in civil cases. ”

“ Apart from clamping down on pirated optical discs activities at the manufacture, storage, retail and import/export levels, the C&ED strives to fight against corporate piracy, namely, the use of pirated software and copyright works for commercial purposes. Moreover, four Anti-Internet-Piracy Teams have been established to fight against piracy activities on the Internet. The Customs Computer Forensic Laboratory offers professional assistance in collecting, preserving, analyzing, and presenting digital evidence to law court in piracy cases. ”

“ However, we are concerned with the explosion of copyright piracy within its borders. U.S. industry continues to raise concerns about the overall environment for production, sale, and export of a wide range of infringing products and the impunity accorded well-connected figures involved in infringement. Optical media piracy, including business and entertainment software, and increasing production and export of pirate CDs remains a particularly acute problem. Signal theft/cable piracy continues to be widespread. ”

“ The practice of shipping products separately from counterfeit labels and packaging to evade enforcement efforts that target the completed counterfeit item continues. Media box-based piracy, whereby storage devices, often with capability to play high definition content, are loaded with large quantities of pirated works or are configured to facilitate the user's access to websites featuring unlicensed content, is growing in popularity, reportedly in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. ”

“ Quite obviously the question at stake is not whether or not the RIAA is allowed to aggressively combat piracy. What Lessig and other "copyfighters" take issue with is the fact that potentially liberating technology is being crippled by the assumption that everyone using it will exploit it to steal, pirate, and otherwise compromise the commercial endeavours of copyright holders. ”

“ Large amounts of pirated music imports enter Poland from Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, and Russia, while pirate movie DVDs enter from Russia, and pirate software enters from Russia, Ukraine, Malaysia, and China. Significant amounts of pirate cartridge-based video games arrive in Poland from the Greater China region. In addition, Internet piracy, including piracy at Internet cafes, presents a growing problem in Poland. ”

“ Finally, the third market-harm concern is that digital distribution raises greatly increased risks of piracy. In its 2001 report addressing digital first sale, the U.S. Copyright Office concluded that “the concerns about expanding first sale to limit the reproduction right, harm to the market as a result of the ease of distribution, and the lessened deterrent effect of the law that could promote piracy, outweigh the pro-competitive gains that might be realized from the creation of a digital first sale doctrine.” ”

“ The rapid increase in the Internet to over 210 million users suggests that this challenge is likely to continue to grow, with many industry groups focused predominantly on Internet piracy. Notwithstanding these new challenges, trade in pirated optical discs continues to thrive, supplied by both licensed and unlicensed factories and by smugglers. A crackdown in Beijing and certain other cities by municipal management authorities appears to have reduced the incidence of "backpack" vendors. ”

“ Enforcement efforts in 2004 included several raids and seizures, including some at production facilities, but no plant licenses have been permanently suspended, plants have not ceased to operate, and the U.S. copyright industry estimates that 70 percent of seized pirated product was returned to the market. In addition, Internet piracy is increasing (industry reports that a Russian website is now the largest portal for pirate product in the world) , and Russia has not taken decisive actions to combat this growing problem. ”

“ Specifically, Uruguay needs to update its 1937 copyright law to clarify that software is protected as a literary work, among other deficiencies. Movement towards a comprehensive copyright law stalled in 2001, and the U.S. Government is concerned about a flawed, software-only bill, which is moving forward. The United States is heartened by the increase in raids and prosecutions against piracy since 2000. However, inadequate civil remedies and lax border enforcement have caused high piracy rates to persist, and have allowed Uruguay to become a major transshipment point for pirated products. ”

“ Despite these improvements, the United States is concerned that hard goods counterfeiting and piracy continue to be widespread, particularly for the motion picture, television and entertainment software industries. ”

“ And from the reader’s perspective, since digital piracy results in an exact copy, it makes no difference at all to the end use whether the article is pirated or not. So aside from the question of legality, piracy definitely works well for many users’ immediate needs – and the distributed nature of the web means that it is probably impossible to stop. ”

“ Italy's failure to pass this important legislation is of particular concern because it has some of the lowest criminal penalties in Europe and one of the highest rates of piracy. Piracy and counterfeiting of American intellectual property in Italy continue to be relatively widespread practices, particularly with regard to piracy of video, sound recordings, computer software, books, and video games. ”

“ The United States will examine closely China's implementation of the JI to determine whether its application addresses its underlying deficiencies and actually deters counterfeiting and piracy.
With regard to Internet piracy in particular, the JI provides that: "Distributing a written work, musical work, motion picture, television program or other visual work, computer software or other works to the public by information network" falls under the definition of 'reproducing and distributing' stipulated in Article 217 of the Criminal Law." ”

“ Abstract Ownership of intellectual property rights for a large proportion of the scholarly record is held by publishers, so a majority of journal articles are behind paywalls and unavailable to most people. As a result some readers are encouraged to use pirate websites such as Sci-Hub to access them, a practice that is alternately regarded as criminal and unethical or as a justified act of civil disobedience. This article considers both the efficacy and ethics of piracy, placing ‘guerrilla open access’ within a longer history of piracy and access to knowledge. ”

“ For example, Russia has increased penalties for copyright crimes and stepped up action against unlicensed optical disc plants. China has made progress on implementation of measures to reduce end-user software piracy and agreed to strengthen enforcement against company name misuse. In Taiwan, prosecutions for business software piracy have increased, and Taiwan passed legislation making illegal and subjecting to civil and criminal liability services that intentionally facilitate peer-to peer file sharing. Seizures of counterfeit pharmaceuticals have increased in Indonesia and Nigeria. ”

“ However, the United States is encouraged by recent convictions against companies for business software piracy, and by the indictment of a company and website administrator for enabling infringement on a peer-to-peer network. ”

“ Legislation would be appropriate to improve several deficiencies in the system: the copyright law should be amended to provide an effective mechanism to address piracy in the digital environment, including full implementation of the WIPO Internet Treaties; royalty collecting societies should be required to have fair and transparent procedures; and police should be given the ex officio authority they currently lack, which impedes them from acting on obvious infringement cases. ”

“ Despite the continued implementation of the 2000 Copyright Law and increased enforcement actions in 2003, piracy and counterfeiting rates in Italy remain among the highest in Western Europe. Widespread piracy continues in virtually all copyright-based sectors. ”

“ Despite what the anti-piracy adverts before films may claim, there is a distinct difference between piracy, which is the infringement of copyright law, and theft, which is the taking of property with the intent to permanently deprive the rightful owner of it. ”

“ With respect to enforcement, the level of activity undertaken by enforcement officials has been insufficient to deter piracy. While the government has been working with the U.S. copyright-based industries to conduct some raids, overall enforcement is not carried out with sufficient regularity and is not accompanied by the appropriate level of publicity and sentences to reduce the level of piracy. The use of unauthorized computer software in government offices also remains a problem. ”