James Delahunty
14 Feb 2006 15:00
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has called on the U.S. Government to recognize serious copyright violations in Russia and to designate the country for possible sanctions. The IIPA represents copyright-based industries. The recommendation was made as part of an annual submission by the IIPA to the U.S. Trade Representative ahead of the USTR's "Special 301" review of piracy worldwide. The review gets its name from provisions of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 and allows the U.S. to impose penalties on countries judged to not be offering effective protection of intellectual property rights.
The IIPA wants Russia to be named a "Priority Foreign Country", a designation reserved for states that are judged to "have the most onerous and egregious acts, policies, and practices that have the greatest adverse impact on U.S. products". "Russia's copyright piracy problem remains one of the world's most serious," the IIPA said in its submission. The group claims software piracy is at 85%, music piracy is at 67%, movie piracy is at 81% and entertainment software piracy is at 82%.
The report also says Russia is home to "some of the world's most open and notorious Web sites selling unauthorized materials". As an example, allofmp3.com was criticised for selling MP3 downloads for a few cents per track. Last year, Russia was also recommended for the Priority Foreign Country list, but it turned out that only Ukraine was on the list when the report was published in April.
Source:
Infoworld