Tag Archives: piracy

Trade in counterfeit & pirated goods is $.5 trillion – 2.5% of all imports

February 7, 2017 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

“Fakes,” or counterfeit products, are a growing menace that deplete resources, threaten jobs and endanger lives. 

A report compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says that imports of counterfeit and pirated goods are worth nearly half a trillion dollars a year, or around 2.5% of global imports. That is about the entire GDP of Austria, or of Ireland and the Czech Republic combined.

The U.S., Italian and French brands have been the hardest hit, and “many of the proceeds going to organised crime.” The 2016 report was co-authored by the EU’s Intellectual Property Office. China also is in the top 12 (see graph below).

Five-percent are Fakes

“Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact” puts the value of imported fake goods worldwide at $461 billion in 2013, compared with total imports in world trade of $17.9 trillion.

Up to 5% of goods imported into the European Union are fakes, the report stated. Most originate in middle-income or emerging countries, with China the top producer.

“Transit points include economies with very weak governance and having a strong presence of organized crime or even terrorist networks (e.g. Afghanistan or Syria).”

nationshit

“Given the fundamental economic importance of IP, counterfeiting and piracy must be directly targeted as a threat to sustainable IP-based business models,” concludes the OECD report.

China may be making great strides in domestic patent protection (see China is Poised to Overtake the U.S. as the Leading Patent System) with low injunction hurdles and high respect for foreign-held rights, but as of 2013, it was responsible for almost two-thirds of global counterfeits, based on the percent of seizures documented.

Missing: Content and Invention Theft

Ironically, the Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods: Mapping the Economic Impact, does not mention content sharing or copying, copyright violations, as a global threat.

It also does not address the economic impact of products being falsely sold as original that are infringing other businesses’ patents.

fakeoriginators

For those interested, the 2017 OECD Global Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum will be held this year in Paris, March 30-31. For more information go here.

 

Image source: OECD report

Events, News, Places, Research, Uncategorized
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EU copyright reform – A leap forward or step back?

September 21, 2016 by Bruce Berman 0 Comments

Reforms to copyright law proposed last week by the European Commission would put the burden on Internet companies like Google, Facebook and YouTube to prevent online piracy and compensate content providers, like music companies and news providers. 

In a shift in policy the proposals issued by the European Commission would require websites that host video and stream music to shoulder more responsibility for rooting out copyright infringements.

Under the current rules, reports the Financial Times, YouTube, Facebook and other video platforms remove material on a case-by-case basis only after being notified by rights-holders. If adopted, the proposals would require them to run proactive software checks to determine whether content they are hosting contained copyright material.

Preventing Piracy

The European Commission proposal is intended to prevent piracy, which has haunted the music industry and recording artists which has shed more than 60% of its value since 2000, and to prop up content providers like newspapers and magazines, which have seen declines in print circulation.

leaked-copyright-communicationThe reforms aim the foundation of a long-running fight between struggling traditional media companies — from record labels to newspapers — and the technology groups that increasingly dominate online media.

Critics say the EC is seeking to shift the responsibility for identifying copyrighted content by requiring Internet companies that host user uploaded video, such as YouTube and Facebook, to proactively check for copyrighted material, rather than waiting to receive a take down request from a rights holder.

Industry trade publication TechCrunch reports that “The draft directive also includes a proposal for a new right for news publishers covering digital use of their content for 20 years. Unsurprisingly, Google is not a fan of this.”

This extended right is similar to ancillary copyright laws already enacted by governments in Germany and Spain which target search engines displaying snippets of news stories.

Mandatory Fee

The law as enacted in Spain included a mandatory fee for displaying snippets, one line summaries from publishers, and led to Google to pull its Google News service in the country. While many Germany publishers waived their rights in favor of retaining the traffic Google sends their way.

Whether YouTube’s free site is directly competing with paid services such as Apple Inc.’s Apple Music and Spotify AB is a matter of debate, reports the Wall Street Journal. According to a YouTube spokeswoman, “users come to YouTube to watch all kinds of different videos. The average YouTube user spends an average of an hour a month consuming music, far less than music-only platforms.”

The European Commission’s proposals, which come after a three-year review aimed at updating copyright law for the digital age, could take years to ratify. The proposals have been—and are likely to remain—the subject of heavy lobbying from copyright holders like record labels and newspaper publishers on one hand, and technology firms on the other.

Give-Backs?

It will be interesting to to see if the EU will be successful in rolling back what Internet users have come to believe is free content that until now has not been seriously policed.

A draft of the proposed EU reforms can be found here.

Image source:1709blog.com; openforumeurope.org

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Rampant IP Piracy is Hurting U.S.

June 17, 2010 by Bruce Lehman 0 Comments

China-U.S. IP Policy:

Not a Two-Way Street

The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) held a public hearing on June 15 and 16 that focused on China’s IP policies and their effect on the U.S. economy.  The ITC, which hears Section 337 investigations involving unfair IP competition, is a relatively fast-track option to district courts.

Among the organizations and witnesses testifying was Hon. Bruce A. Lehman, former USPTO Commissioner and Undersecretary of Commerce from 1993-1998 and President of the International Intellectual Property Institute, an un-affiliated IP think tank. Lehman believes the U.S. IP relationship with China, which was negotiated on good faith in the 1990s, is failing miserably.

“Between 1998 and 2008 the U.S. trade deficit with China grew from$81.8 billion to $268 billion,” notes Lehman.

“The underlying assumption [of the Clinton Administration] was that the United States would permit China and other developing countries to benefit from their comparative advantage in labor costs, while we would benefit from our comparative advantage in technology. Ideally, this would work to the benefit of both parties.”

Unfortunately, full value of U.S. technology and products have not been realized because piracy and IP rights infringement is rampant and constitute a significant and still growing part of the Chinese economy.

“Taken all together the various aspects of the emerging Chinese intellectual property system combine to disadvantage IPR based imports,” continues Lehman, “sheltering domestic technology and information based industries from effective foreign competition, while the Chinese create their own export-competitive industries.”

The full text of Lehman’s testimonycan be found at this link. It’s worth reading and remembering.

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