Committee of Scope and Sequence (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} homeworking) wrote,@ 2005-01-23 20:58:00 |
|
Operation Rewind, meet Operation Firestorm
Apparently, file-sharing kills, and Osama Bin Laden is hawking mixtapes on Canal Street. Jack Valenti is a sick old fart, and I can't believe Gurinder Chadha allowed him to take her for "Show & Tell."
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT PIRACY: A GROWING PROBLEM WITH LINKS TO ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORISM
HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, THE INTERNET, AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS. FIRST SESSION. MARCH 13, 2003
Mr. Smith:
In 2000, the annual seizure of pirated discs for the Motion Picture Association was 1.9 billion units. By the close of 2002, it was up to 6.1 billion units. In just 2 years, the annual piracy rate had increased five times.
In some places, such as Asia and parts of the former Soviet Union, pirated software accounts for nearly 90 percent of the software used. At the close of 2002, for example, seizures of pirated Microsoft products alone exceeded $1.7 billion.
The copyright industries drive the engine of the American economy. Exports and foreign sales of U.S. copyrighted products total $100 billion, which helps the national balance of trade. Copyrighted works are a result of American creativity. When properly commercialized, these works lead to jobs, profits, and a more enjoyable quality of life for us all.
There is good reason why the Founders embraced the concept of intellectual property protection. They realized that if creators cannot gain from their creations, they will not bother to create. And actors and writers and composers and singers cannot gain if their work is stolen. Would any other American industry be able to sustain its operations for long if a third of its sales were lost to theft?
A recent article in Time Europe noted that an average drug dealer pays $47,000 for a kilo of cocaine with an estimated street value of $94,000, which yields 100 percent profit. For the same $47,000 investment, a pirate could buy or produce 1,500 pirated copies of Microsoft's Office 2000 professional software and resell it for a profit of 900 percent.
Mr. Berman:
While Internet—international hard goods piracy may seem a dull subject to some, it is a critical issue to U.S. copyright holders. The aggregate hard good piracy losses suffered by U.S. copyright industries in foreign nations are pretty astounding. You've mentioned some of the figures. You talked about 56 countries. I have an estimate that it probably equals $20–$22 billion annually worldwide, not including Internet piracy.
Individual foreign countries—China, $1.85 billion; $770 million in Brazil; $800 million in Italy; $757 million in Taiwan; and $756 million in the Russian Federation. Another interesting statistic—93 percent of business software sold in China, 47 percent of music sold in Taiwan, 80 percent of movies sold in the Russian Federation were pirated.
In 2001, 99 percent of entertainment software sold in Brazil was pirated, while, in 2002, 55 percent of entertainment software sold in Italy was pirated.
As piracy percentages climb in a particular nation, it becomes increasingly difficult for U.S. copyright owners to establish a legitimate market. In some cases, as with entertainment software in Brazil, U.S. copyright owners have had to abandon the market entirely. They simply can't justify the expense of maintaining a presence in a nation where the demand for their copyrighted works is almost entirely met by vastly cheaper pirated versions.
The piracy-related inability of U.S. copyright owners to access a legitimate market in many foreign countries results in real harm to the U.S. economy. The core copyright industries make a tremendous contribution to the U.S. economy, accounting for more than 5 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. That's more than the deficit will be in about 5 or 6 years. [Laughter.]...
I don't want to steal her thunder, but I want to highlight a couple of the issues that I think her particular situation represents. In Joan's case, the theft of her intellectual property rights is not some private syndicate operating in distant shadows within a foreign government, but it is the foreign government itself—the Russian Federation government.
Mr. Malcolm:
Highly organized criminal syndicates pose special challenges for law enforcement because they have significant resources to devote to their illegal operations, thereby increasing the scope and sophistication of their activity. They control international distribution channels, which allow them to move massive quantities of pirated goods, as well as any other illicit goods, throughout the world.
These groups will not hesitate to threaten or injure those who attempt to interfere with their operations. Throughout Asia, organized crime groups operate assembly lines and factories that generate literally millions of pirated optical discs. These groups pirate a full range of products, ranging from music to software to movies to video games. Anything that can be reproduced onto an optical disk and sold around the globe is available...
Of course, this problem is not limited to Malaysia, but occurs in other parts of the world such as in parts of the former Soviet Union. Additionally, many organized piracy groups from Asia use South America, most notably Paraguay, as a transshipment point for pirated products. Industry groups have reported that organized crime from Taiwan and other parts of the world control much of the distribution of optical disks into Latin America through Ciudad del Este...
Mr. VALENTI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Berman, and Members of the Committee.
Before I begin, I want to introduce a gifted young independent filmmaker from Britain, whose blockbuster film, ''Bend It Like Beckham,'' is proving very popular in Europe. But, alas, it's been hijacked all over the world, and here it is avalanching this country. And guess what? Her film doesn't come out yet in the United States for another week.
Ms. Gurinder Chadha. Stand up. I want them to see you.
Because in the words of Peter Finch in the movie ''Network,'' she's mad as hell, and she's not going to take it anymore. [Laughter.]...
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JACK VALENTI
America's crown jewels—its intellectual property—are being looted. Organized, violent, international criminal groups are getting rich from the high gain/low risk business of stealing America's copyrighted works. We don't know to what end the profits from these criminal enterprises are put. US industry alone will never have the tools to penetrate these groups or to trace the nefarious paths to which those profits are put. For these reasons it is entirely suitable and necessary that the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property of the House of Representative's Committee on the Judiciary hold this hearing and illuminate the nature of the problems and the effect on the copyright industries (consisting of movies, TV programs, home videos, books, music, computer games and software).
Page 48
THE ECONOMIC WORTH OF THE COPYRIGHT INDUSTRIES
The copyright industries were responsible in 2001 for some five percent of the GDP of the nation. Over the past quarter century, these industries' share of GDP grew more than twice as fast as the remainder of the economy. They earn more international revenues than automobiles and auto parts, more than aircraft, more than agriculture. The copyright industries are creating new jobs at three times the rate of the rest of the economy. The movie industry alone has a surplus balance of trade with every single country in the world. No other American industry can make that statement. And all this comes at a time when the U.S. is suffering from some $400 billion in trade deficits.
DIGITAL PIRACY: THE DELIVERY DREAM, THE PIRACY NIGHTMARE
It would be a serious mistake to take our past successes for granted. While piracy has been a sad fact illuminating our lives since the blossoming of the home video entertainment business a quarter century ago, the forms of digital piracy we now face raise serious, new challenges that we need your help in addressing.
I must admit, with all appropriate modesty, that we had become fairly good at combating the old forms of analog video tape piracy. With the help of our government and international trade agreements, such as the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property, most countries have adopted modern copyright laws. We had been seeing declining loss rates in many of the traditional centers of piracy. Despite our successes, we were losing close to $3 billion dollars a year.
Page 49
And then the world changed. Digital technologies, which offer so much in terms of enhanced clarity of image and sound, and exciting new ways to deliver high quality entertainment directly to people's homes, also gave birth to serious new forms of piracy.
By now, I presume that all of you have heard of our concerns about Internet piracy—and I assure you, that dialogue will continue. The mysterious magic of being able, with a simple click of a mouse, to send a full-length movie hurtling with the speed of light to any part of the planet, is a marketing dream and an anti-piracy nightmare. Ask the music industry how Internet piracy can devastate an industry's bottom line. As computer modem speeds accelerate and broadband access spreads across the United States and around the world, more people are gaining the ability to download full length motion pictures quickly. The threat to the motion picture industry from Internet piracy is growing.
Internet piracy is not the only digital threat we face. Today, I'd like to focus on another form of digital piracy—widespread piracy of optical discs—CDs, Video CDs, DVDs, and recordable versions like CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. The piracy of DVDs and other optical media products is dominated by organized crime and increasingly threatens our international markets, which account for 40 percent of revenues earned by the filmed entertainment industry. Indeed, all industries that rely on intellectual property protection, including the music and video game industries, are facing huge losses from optical disc piracy, especially in international markets. Microsoft products are another favorite target for the pirates.
The motion picture industry seized over 7 million pirate DVDs worldwide last year. DVD piracy didn't exist for our industry as recently as 1999.
Page 50
''DIE ANOTHER DAY:'' AN EXAMPLE OF PIRATES IN ACTION
The damage from pirated DVDs is enormous. DVD piracy erodes our home video revenues, but also corrodes revenues from our international theatrical business. Pirate DVDs often enter the market months before the release of legitimate DVDs—often before a movie is released into the theaters. Let me give you just one example. MGM's latest James Bond film, Die Another Day, was released theatrically in major cinemas in the United States on November 22. The first pirate copy, camcorded from a press screening in the United States, showed up in pirated DVD format in Malaysia on November 21. By the 28th, only six days after its US theatrical release, every major market in Asia was already infected with pirate copies of Die Another Day. In Taiwan, theatrical release wasn't scheduled until February 1 to coincide with Chinese New Years holidays—normally a big period for cinema sales in that part of the world. The pirates had nine full weeks to sell our products in pirated form before the film was legitimately released in theaters.
A SNAPSHOT OF OPTICAL DISC PIRACY AROUND THE WORLD
The problem of large-scale pirate optical disc production began in China in the mid-90s. When China cut off the export of piratical discs in the late 1990s, the pirates packed up their equipment and relocated to more hospitable areas where enforcement was lax or absent. Now we are seeing major problems with DVD production in Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, and Indonesia. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ukraine, and elsewhere in Central Europe are host to factories replicating pirate copies of music CDs. The music industry's problems today are always a danger sign for us, since pirates often start with music and then move on to movies, video games and other products.
Page 51
In the past year, we have also witnessed a major surge of large-scale factory production of DVDs in Russia. Today there are at least 26 optical plants in Russia, including at least five that specialize in the production of DVDs. The number and overall capacity of these plants has more than doubled in the past two years. Nine of these plants are located on property owned by the Russian Government.
Pirate DVDs have devastated the local market in Russia. Pirate DVDs have so saturated the Russian market that the pirates have resorted to selling them on the streets by the kilo. Pirate DVDs are sold everywhere—at street markets, in kiosks, in retail stores and over the Internet.
Those 26 plants in Russia currently have capacity to replicate about 300 million DVDs and CDs a year; legitimate demand in Russia is approximately 18 million units. This excess capacity points to the fact that the Russian pirates are targeting export markets—OUR export markets. Piracy in Russia poses a major threat to revenues across Europe. In 2002 MPA's anti-piracy operations seized pirate Russian DVDs in markets across Central and Eastern Europe. In July a raid at a retail market in Poland turned up over 4000 copies of pirate discs from Russia. Those discs contained 15 different language tracks—from Finnish and Swedish to Greek and Turkish, Dutch, Danish, to Indian and Arabic. If bold actions aren't taken quickly to shut down this piracy, American sales of copyrighted works to Western Europe—our most lucrative market in the world—will be demolished by these pirated imports from Russia. The time to act is now before these criminals further build out their distribution networks and alliances throughout Central and Western Europe.
Page 52
Even before large-scale factory production has been brought under control, we are now seeing the rapid growth of local burning of movies and other forms of copyrighted content onto blank recordable media—CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. This kind of piracy is more dispersed geographically, since the piracy takes place in medium to small ''labs'' with banks of CD burners, but is often still highly organized. The retail markets in Taiwan are filled with this kind of pirate product; not coincidentally, Taiwan is one of the world's largest producers and exporters of blank optical discs, fueling this problem around the world.
Joan P. Borsten Vidov:
We are proud to have contributed to the safeguarding and promotion of Russia's rich artistic heritage. We accomplished this by investing millions of dollars to acquire, repair, restore, and distribute these films, making them accessible for the first time to the general public outside the former USSR. The Soviets had freely ''borrowed'' Western literature and music to make some of the best animated films—a bad habit that did not end after the USSR signed its first intellectual property convention in 1973. So we also had to plead and cajole representatives of these writers and musicians to license us the rights necessary to keep these films alive...
The most significant advance in the protection of foreign copyright proprietors' rights in the USSR occurred in 1973 when the Soviet Union acceded to the Universal Copyright Convention and for the first time in history granted broad legal protection in USSR to the works of foreign authors. This step forward was the direct byproduct of the intensive trade negotiations between the United States and the USSR that began in 1972. One of the special concerns of the Soviets in these negotiations was the legal protection abroad of Soviet technology. The Soviet government was desirous of expanding the sales and licenses of Soviet technology in the United States, but the Soviets believed that this would not be possible unless the U.S. eliminated the 30 percent withholding tax on royalties earned by Soviet organizations. In the commercial negotiations that followed in 1972 and 1973, the U.S. government negotiators offered to rescind the withholding tax if the Soviets would recognize the rights of U.S. copyright proprietors and compensate them for the use of their works. The culmination of this negotiation was Soviet accession to the Universal copyright convention...
PREPARED STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY P. TRAINER
The International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) would like to thank the distinguished members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to offer its views with respect to the links between intellectual property theft and organized crime and terrorism.
The IACC is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization devoted solely to combating product counterfeiting and piracy. Formed in 1978, today it is comprised of a cross section of business and industry—from autos, apparel, luxury goods, and pharmaceuticals, to food, software and entertainment—the IACC's members' combined annual revenues exceed $650 billion. The touchstone of the IACC's mission is to combat counterfeiting and piracy by promoting laws, regulations and directives designed to render the theft of intellectual property undesirable and unprofitable. The IACC serves as an umbrella organization, offering anticounterfeiting programs designed to increase protection for patents, trademarks, copyrights, service marks, trade dress and trade secrets.
Critical to the IACC's purpose is its belief that acts of counterfeiting create severe public health and safety hazards, as well as economic harm. The IACC supports government actions that will ultimately result in increased enforcement, lead to the prosecution of intellectual property infringers, and create a strong deterrent to counterfeiters and pirates. In pursuing its mission, the IACC provides law enforcement officials with information and training to identify counterfeit and pirate products and in the methods of product security to prevent the infringement of its members' intellectual property rights.
Page 150
In an effort to create conditions under which its members' intellectual property rights are safe from illegal copying, infringement and other forms of theft, the IACC engages in substantive dialogue with governments and intergovernmental organizations worldwide. In pursuing its mission, the IACC provides law enforcement officials with information and training to identify counterfeit and pirate products and in the methods of product security to prevent the infringement of its members' valuable intellectual property rights.
SCOPE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT
There are no product lines, corporations, or consumers that escape the counterfeiters' and/or pirates' reach. Dangerous counterfeit products have appeared in retail stores across the United States. Organized crime is increasingly attracted by counterfeiting's high profits and relatively low criminal penalties. In addition, the manufacture, distribution and sale of counterfeit goods rob local economies of precious tax revenues, and costs Americans jobs.
Many pirate and counterfeit goods are not as visible as you might think. Many people think of the counterfeits and pirated products purely in terms of street vendors' products—music CDs, sunglasses, t-shirts, hats, cosmetics, cell phone covers, handbags and watches—bearing easily recognizable and known names and logos. But, on a different level, product counterfeiters and pirates are trading on names and logos often associated with things such as razor blades, shampoos, pharmaceuticals, foods, hand tools, auto parts, light bulbs, film, skin lotions, laundry detergent, band-aids, insecticides, batteries, cigarettes and practically anything else that bears a name that consumers are familiar with in the market place. Very few products, if any, are beyond the reach of skilled counterfeiters.
Page 151
PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY DANGERS
Of particular concern to IACC members and consumers is the increasing availability of fakes that present severe health and safety risks. For example, the World Health Organization estimates that counterfeit drugs account for ten percent of all pharmaceuticals. That number can rise to as high as sixty percent (60%) in developing countries.(see footnote 14) In another case, and according to a federal indictment made public in May 2002, U.S. Customs officials seized 59,000 bottles of counterfeit vodka in a Massachusetts warehouse. The fake vodka had been imported from a former Soviet republic.(see footnote 15) In Estonia in 2001, illicit vodka containing methyl alcohol killed 60 people.(see footnote 16) The problems, however, do not end with pharmaceuticals and alcohol.
In the 1990's, a major shampoo manufacturer was forced to place half-page advertisements in at least 27 national newspapers informing the general public that counterfeit versions of its shampoo were available in retail stores. Of particular concern to the manufacturer was the fact that the fake shampoo may have contained bacteria, risking infection in users with weakened immune systems.(see footnote 17) Even more disturbing was the case where the operational life of counterfeit bearing seal spacers removed from a United Airlines plane were found to be only 600 hours—the genuine parts had an operational life of 20,000 hours. The fake parts came complete with fake boxes, labels and paperwork and were only discovered because of a very alert maintenance technician.(see footnote 18) Finally, counterfeit-labeled infant formula found its way onto shelves in grocery stores in 16 states.(see footnote 19)...
These are just a few examples. For more stories about the well documented links between intellectual property theft and organized crime and terrorism, please refer to the attached document containing a list of relevant public source news articles and government reports compiled by the IACC.
The IACC believes that the best deterrent to counterfeiting and piracy is criminal penalties that result in actual imprisonment. Based on this policy, the IACC has led efforts that resulted in the passage of the 1984 Trademark Act that established federal criminal sanctions for trademark counterfeiting,(see footnote 28) the Anticounterfeiting Consumer Protection Act of 1996 that increased civil penalties and provided U.S. Customs with the authority to assess administrative fines against those that import counterfeit products,(see footnote 29) and the establishment of specific criminal provisions for trademark counterfeiting in 31 states and the District of Columbia. By providing federal and state law enforcement officials with the jurisdiction to prosecute counterfeiters, and U.S. Customs with the discretion to penalize known importers of counterfeit merchandise, the IACC has sought to promote a comprehensive enforcement system to stop illegal goods at the borders, punish manufacturers and distributors of counterfeit products in interstate commerce, and address counterfeiting at the retail level within the states, counties and cities where it is most prevalent.
Recent world events have caused federal and state government officials to correctly reevaluate the mission priorities of law enforcement personnel to address national security issues. As pointed out above, the IACC is concerned that the low risk, high-profit nature of counterfeiting and piracy has and will continue to attract the attention of organized crime and terrorist groups looking to fund their operations. The IACC and its members look forward to working with Congress, law enforcement and the new Department of Homeland Security to identify and eliminate links between counterfeiting and the funding of terrorist groups that may arise in the course of protecting U.S. economic interests and intellectual property rights.
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/ju
International Association for
the Study of Organized Crime
http://www.iasoc.net/news.htm
TURNING A CONVICTION INTO PUBLIC EDUCATION: In December 2002, David Rocci pled guilty to conspiracy to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Rocci was the owner and operator of an Internet site dedicated to providing information about copyright infringement (www.iSONEWS.com). Rocci used this web site sell circumvention devices known as Amod chips, which defeat security protections in the Microsoft Xbox---allowing unlimited play of pirated games on the Xbox gaming console. As a condition of his guilty plea, Rocci transferred his domain name and website to the U.S. government. In an imaginative move, the government replaced iSONEWS.com with a new web page providing information about the case U.S. v. Rocci, as well as a general anti-piracy message outlining the potential criminal consequences for engaging in illegal piracy. This case was the first time that the United States assumed control of an active domain name in an intellectual property case. After 2 weeks, the site received over 550,000 hits.
SOFTWARE PIRACY: Don Clark, “Microsoft reports big loss in sales from piracy ring,” The Wall Street Journal, (April 22, 2002). Microsoft lost between $200-$300 million from an international piracy ring that operated for at least 2 years involving 50 suspects with links to organized crime. The FBI's Operation Firestorm resulted in 27 arrests for copyright infringement, fraud and money laundering. Mirza and Sameena Ali were charged in a scheme involving Microsoft's educational discount program. Some of the defendants stole access codes to unlock Windows XP. Adobe Systems and Symantec products also were counterfeited. Most of the arrests were in Silicon Valley with ties to Pakistan and Taiwan.
Volkov, Vadim. Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Capitalism (Cornell University Press, 2002).
Felia Allum and Renate Siebert. Organized Crime and the Challenge to Democracy (Routledge, 2003).
Chin, Kolin. Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise, and Ethnicity (Oxford University Press, 2000).
"Is It Safe?"
http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/Read
Copy protection has taken on many forms since Hollywood studios began fighting the villainous VCR back in the 1970s.... Whatever their (mis)fortunes on the Web, technology companies have enjoyed some success in fighting disc copy protection in the streets: March 2002 saw the first-ever publicized bust of DVD-R pirates in the Bronx, New York, and the LAPD nabbed a similar piracy ring in Long Beach in July. While these busts brought down relatively small operations, they appear for now to be proportional to the problem in the U.S. Piracy overseas, however, particularly in Asia, continues to run rampant. While there is a thirst for American culture, there is also a distaste for perceived American greed, so until these attitudes change, would-be protectors of copyrighted content will continue to wage an uphill battle.
Statistics
Software piracy grew from 37 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2001 around the world, according to the Business Software Alliance's (BSA) seventh annual survey on global software piracy. "In the seven years that we have conducted this study, this is the first time piracy has increased two years in a row. This is particularly disturbing in light of the fact that more and more software companies are moving their distribution systems to the Internet," says BSA president and CEO Robert Holleyman. Vietnam, China, and Indonesia topped the piracy charts although in the last year we've seen minor percentage declines there. North America continued to be the region with the lowest piracy rate at 26 percent, up one percentage point from 25 percent in 2000. However, North America accounted for the third-highest piracy dollar losses, totaling $1.9 billion, down from $2.9 billion in 2000. That decline can be deceiving. BSA attributes it to the strong U.S. dollar relative to local currencies and to lower software prices.
The Recording Industry Association (RIAA) says they were more successful in busting up illegal operations in 2001 than they were in 2000. Raids on more than 230 distribution operations and more than 145 manufacturing operations led to the seizure of 2.8 million unauthorized CD-Rs. Raids aside, the RIAA says the music industry loses more than $1 billion per year from the illegal activities conducted in the world's four leading pirate marketplaces: Brazil, China, Russia, and Mexico. Not including losses resulting from Internet piracy, the sale of pirate recordings exceeds $4.2 billion worldwide.
Dave Gussow, "For entertainment industry, resistance is usually futile"
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/15/Techn
It has balked before, at the player piano and the VCR. Now its target is file sharing. Will the entertainment industry again fail at its efforts to thwart a new technology it feels threatened by? ...
Looking back, some of the lawsuits involving the entertainment industry and new technology may seem quaint. In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Apollo Co., which made player pianos, did not violate the copyright of the songs Little Cotton Dolly and Kentucky Babe, held by the White-Smith Music Publishing Co., by putting the music on piano rolls.
In 1976, Universal Studios and Walt Disney Productions sued to block Sony's Betamax video cassette recorder, saying they wanted surcharges added to the cost of the machines and blank tapes to make up for the loss of copyright royalties.
It took eight years, but the Supreme Court ultimately decided in Sony's favor, with the majority finding that people taping TV programs "is legitimate fair use." The Betamax eventually died, with the VHS format becoming dominant, but the precedent stood.
One of the first real tests of the digital age came in 1998. The Recording Industry Association of America sued to stop the sale of the Diamond Rio, the first MP3 digital music player, saying it would encourage piracy. The association lost.
Last year, 5.5-million portable music players were sold in the United States, according to market research company IDC, a number predicted to grow to 19.3-million units by 2007...
Music has drawn most of the attention so far because the technology has not evolved to make movie downloads fast and easy - yet.
Even on a fast digital subscriber line connection, downloading a 136-minute movie can take 75 minutes. (A faster connection can accomplish the task in about 15 minutes.) In fact, the movie industry's main nemesis at the moment is illegal copying of DVDs, mostly in Asia.
But the industry expects file sharing to become an issue as technology advances and more people use high-speed Internet connections, said Fritz Attaway, executive vice president of the movie group. "We don't have a clear idea of how to solve the problem. It is probably a combination of technology, education and legislation."
Martin Ryder, "The Global Digital Divide: Technical Responses and Social Implications"
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/dig_
And herein lies the central problem posed in this volume: the Digital Divide - the cultural disparity that results between those who are highly connected into this global information interchange and the rest of the world. There are more Internet Service Providers in New York City than in the whole of Africa (Adam, 2002). In today's world where 80% of the population lack access to basic telecommunications facilities and where nearly half the people have never made a telephone call, there is a small, highly connected segment of us who are creating rapid changes that impact the lives and habitat of all the rest. The industrialized countries with only 15% of the world's population represent 88% of the Internet user population. South Asia, home for 20% of humanity, makes up less than 1% of Internet users. At the present time, a greater plurality of the world's population remains isolated, disconnected, and uninvolved with regard to the multiple changes that affect them, their habitat, and those who will follow after them (UNESCO, 1998)...
The philosophical stance of constructivism is offered in contrast to determinism. A constructivist view of technology in society stresses free agency, individual will, conscious deliberation and choice among human agents. Constructivists insist that people are active agents and not helpless automatons or passive victims; they are always able to make deliberate choices and to exercise control over change. Constructivism argues that human feasibility is not tightly defined by external objective forces alone. There is generally a surplus of workable solutions to any given problem. Technology, including the technology of language, is just another dependent social variable and not the key to the riddle of history.
From a constructivist point of view, social actors make the final choice among several technically viable options. If one option is closed, an agentive actor selects another route to accomplish a critical task. In the real world, the problem-definition often changes in the course of solution (Feenberg, 1992).
A good example of agentive activity by marginalized people is the so-called Radio Defiance Campaign that emerged in South Africa in the late 1980s (see Michaud, 2003). It was a time when the radio airwaves were strictly controlled by the white ruling class. What black South Africans heard on the radio was white-owned and white-controlled programming. In the black townships the programming promoted the notion that apartheid was good, that it was natural and inevitable, and that any expression of resistance amounted to nothing less than terrorism. Attempts toward community controlled programming in broadcasting were strictly out of the question, and black South Africans had become generally alienated from the medium of radio.
During this period, tape cassette players were becoming popular in black townships. Under the leadership of the African National Congress, people began to produce their own programming, mostly music with news and community interest productions, using the medium of magnetic cassette tape! These produced 'radio' broadcasts were passed from hand to hand in small communities. In time, a sofisticated distribution network emerged, where tapes and copies of tapes found circulation into the tens of thousands. In townships where official radio programming was completely ignored, the cassette distribution system developed into a vibrant phenomenon. A complex actor network had been created, connecting human and non-human agents into a viable, coherent, collective organism that was capable of translating the absence of community radio into a force of social change. The Radio Defiance Campaign was a small but significant factor in community organizing that eventually toppled the apartheid regime.
It has been argued that communication technology is a critical factor for influencing social organization and change. But technology is simply one factor among many. Social change is too complex and too subtle to be explained in reductionist terms of media and message. Grand theories tend to ignore the socio-historical contexts. Social change involves an interaction of social, cultural and economic forces as well as scientific and technological influences.
One grand theory about the digital divide suggests that the marginalized will remain silent until they have direct access to the Internet and they have mastered the skills necessary to use the technology effectively. But the example of the Zapatista Movement in Chiapas Mexico suggests otherwise. The manner in which the Zapatista rebellion was covered on the Internet has become one of the most successful examples of the use of computer communications by grassroots social movements. Local Zapatista support was well established in Chiapas. And the human connections with multiple communities outside Southern Mexico was a growing phenomenon. There was no sophisticated ICT network in Chiapas. There were no skilled technicians to wire these connections. There was no government grant or NGO benefactor to underwrite this project.
Gustav Guldberg and Johannes Sundén, "Pirates and Merchants - An Ongoing Struggle on the Hightech Seas"
http://www.msi.vxu.se/forskn/exarb/2
"A BRIEF BUT INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF BOOTLEGS"
http://log.on.ca/hotwacks/zhist.htm
Geoff Boucher, "Mix tapes: Piracy or talent mother lode?"
www.chicagotribune.com/technology/ chi-030430epmixtapes,1,5446515.story
"Screen Digest - Global Media Intelligence"
Apparently, file-sharing kills, and Osama Bin Laden is hawking mixtapes on Canal Street. Jack Valenti is a sick old fart, and I can't believe Gurinder Chadha allowed him to take her for "Show & Tell."
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT PIRACY: A GROWING PROBLEM WITH LINKS TO ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORISM
HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS, THE INTERNET, AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS. FIRST SESSION. MARCH 13, 2003
Mr. Smith:
In 2000, the annual seizure of pirated discs for the Motion Picture Association was 1.9 billion units. By the close of 2002, it was up to 6.1 billion units. In just 2 years, the annual piracy rate had increased five times.
In some places, such as Asia and parts of the former Soviet Union, pirated software accounts for nearly 90 percent of the software used. At the close of 2002, for example, seizures of pirated Microsoft products alone exceeded $1.7 billion.
The copyright industries drive the engine of the American economy. Exports and foreign sales of U.S. copyrighted products total $100 billion, which helps the national balance of trade. Copyrighted works are a result of American creativity. When properly commercialized, these works lead to jobs, profits, and a more enjoyable quality of life for us all.
There is good reason why the Founders embraced the concept of intellectual property protection. They realized that if creators cannot gain from their creations, they will not bother to create. And actors and writers and composers and singers cannot gain if their work is stolen. Would any other American industry be able to sustain its operations for long if a third of its sales were lost to theft?
A recent article in Time Europe noted that an average drug dealer pays $47,000 for a kilo of cocaine with an estimated street value of $94,000, which yields 100 percent profit. For the same $47,000 investment, a pirate could buy or produce 1,500 pirated copies of Microsoft's Office 2000 professional software and resell it for a profit of 900 percent.
Mr. Berman:
While Internet—international hard goods piracy may seem a dull subject to some, it is a critical issue to U.S. copyright holders. The aggregate hard good piracy losses suffered by U.S. copyright industries in foreign nations are pretty astounding. You've mentioned some of the figures. You talked about 56 countries. I have an estimate that it probably equals $20–$22 billion annually worldwide, not including Internet piracy.
Individual foreign countries—China, $1.85 billion; $770 million in Brazil; $800 million in Italy; $757 million in Taiwan; and $756 million in the Russian Federation. Another interesting statistic—93 percent of business software sold in China, 47 percent of music sold in Taiwan, 80 percent of movies sold in the Russian Federation were pirated.
In 2001, 99 percent of entertainment software sold in Brazil was pirated, while, in 2002, 55 percent of entertainment software sold in Italy was pirated.
As piracy percentages climb in a particular nation, it becomes increasingly difficult for U.S. copyright owners to establish a legitimate market. In some cases, as with entertainment software in Brazil, U.S. copyright owners have had to abandon the market entirely. They simply can't justify the expense of maintaining a presence in a nation where the demand for their copyrighted works is almost entirely met by vastly cheaper pirated versions.
The piracy-related inability of U.S. copyright owners to access a legitimate market in many foreign countries results in real harm to the U.S. economy. The core copyright industries make a tremendous contribution to the U.S. economy, accounting for more than 5 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product. That's more than the deficit will be in about 5 or 6 years. [Laughter.]...
I don't want to steal her thunder, but I want to highlight a couple of the issues that I think her particular situation represents. In Joan's case, the theft of her intellectual property rights is not some private syndicate operating in distant shadows within a foreign government, but it is the foreign government itself—the Russian Federation government.
Mr. Malcolm:
Highly organized criminal syndicates pose special challenges for law enforcement because they have significant resources to devote to their illegal operations, thereby increasing the scope and sophistication of their activity. They control international distribution channels, which allow them to move massive quantities of pirated goods, as well as any other illicit goods, throughout the world.
These groups will not hesitate to threaten or injure those who attempt to interfere with their operations. Throughout Asia, organized crime groups operate assembly lines and factories that generate literally millions of pirated optical discs. These groups pirate a full range of products, ranging from music to software to movies to video games. Anything that can be reproduced onto an optical disk and sold around the globe is available...
Of course, this problem is not limited to Malaysia, but occurs in other parts of the world such as in parts of the former Soviet Union. Additionally, many organized piracy groups from Asia use South America, most notably Paraguay, as a transshipment point for pirated products. Industry groups have reported that organized crime from Taiwan and other parts of the world control much of the distribution of optical disks into Latin America through Ciudad del Este...
Mr. VALENTI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Berman, and Members of the Committee.
Before I begin, I want to introduce a gifted young independent filmmaker from Britain, whose blockbuster film, ''Bend It Like Beckham,'' is proving very popular in Europe. But, alas, it's been hijacked all over the world, and here it is avalanching this country. And guess what? Her film doesn't come out yet in the United States for another week.
Ms. Gurinder Chadha. Stand up. I want them to see you.
Because in the words of Peter Finch in the movie ''Network,'' she's mad as hell, and she's not going to take it anymore. [Laughter.]...
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JACK VALENTI
America's crown jewels—its intellectual property—are being looted. Organized, violent, international criminal groups are getting rich from the high gain/low risk business of stealing America's copyrighted works. We don't know to what end the profits from these criminal enterprises are put. US industry alone will never have the tools to penetrate these groups or to trace the nefarious paths to which those profits are put. For these reasons it is entirely suitable and necessary that the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property of the House of Representative's Committee on the Judiciary hold this hearing and illuminate the nature of the problems and the effect on the copyright industries (consisting of movies, TV programs, home videos, books, music, computer games and software).
Page 48
THE ECONOMIC WORTH OF THE COPYRIGHT INDUSTRIES
The copyright industries were responsible in 2001 for some five percent of the GDP of the nation. Over the past quarter century, these industries' share of GDP grew more than twice as fast as the remainder of the economy. They earn more international revenues than automobiles and auto parts, more than aircraft, more than agriculture. The copyright industries are creating new jobs at three times the rate of the rest of the economy. The movie industry alone has a surplus balance of trade with every single country in the world. No other American industry can make that statement. And all this comes at a time when the U.S. is suffering from some $400 billion in trade deficits.
DIGITAL PIRACY: THE DELIVERY DREAM, THE PIRACY NIGHTMARE
It would be a serious mistake to take our past successes for granted. While piracy has been a sad fact illuminating our lives since the blossoming of the home video entertainment business a quarter century ago, the forms of digital piracy we now face raise serious, new challenges that we need your help in addressing.
I must admit, with all appropriate modesty, that we had become fairly good at combating the old forms of analog video tape piracy. With the help of our government and international trade agreements, such as the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property, most countries have adopted modern copyright laws. We had been seeing declining loss rates in many of the traditional centers of piracy. Despite our successes, we were losing close to $3 billion dollars a year.
Page 49
And then the world changed. Digital technologies, which offer so much in terms of enhanced clarity of image and sound, and exciting new ways to deliver high quality entertainment directly to people's homes, also gave birth to serious new forms of piracy.
By now, I presume that all of you have heard of our concerns about Internet piracy—and I assure you, that dialogue will continue. The mysterious magic of being able, with a simple click of a mouse, to send a full-length movie hurtling with the speed of light to any part of the planet, is a marketing dream and an anti-piracy nightmare. Ask the music industry how Internet piracy can devastate an industry's bottom line. As computer modem speeds accelerate and broadband access spreads across the United States and around the world, more people are gaining the ability to download full length motion pictures quickly. The threat to the motion picture industry from Internet piracy is growing.
Internet piracy is not the only digital threat we face. Today, I'd like to focus on another form of digital piracy—widespread piracy of optical discs—CDs, Video CDs, DVDs, and recordable versions like CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. The piracy of DVDs and other optical media products is dominated by organized crime and increasingly threatens our international markets, which account for 40 percent of revenues earned by the filmed entertainment industry. Indeed, all industries that rely on intellectual property protection, including the music and video game industries, are facing huge losses from optical disc piracy, especially in international markets. Microsoft products are another favorite target for the pirates.
The motion picture industry seized over 7 million pirate DVDs worldwide last year. DVD piracy didn't exist for our industry as recently as 1999.
Page 50
''DIE ANOTHER DAY:'' AN EXAMPLE OF PIRATES IN ACTION
The damage from pirated DVDs is enormous. DVD piracy erodes our home video revenues, but also corrodes revenues from our international theatrical business. Pirate DVDs often enter the market months before the release of legitimate DVDs—often before a movie is released into the theaters. Let me give you just one example. MGM's latest James Bond film, Die Another Day, was released theatrically in major cinemas in the United States on November 22. The first pirate copy, camcorded from a press screening in the United States, showed up in pirated DVD format in Malaysia on November 21. By the 28th, only six days after its US theatrical release, every major market in Asia was already infected with pirate copies of Die Another Day. In Taiwan, theatrical release wasn't scheduled until February 1 to coincide with Chinese New Years holidays—normally a big period for cinema sales in that part of the world. The pirates had nine full weeks to sell our products in pirated form before the film was legitimately released in theaters.
A SNAPSHOT OF OPTICAL DISC PIRACY AROUND THE WORLD
The problem of large-scale pirate optical disc production began in China in the mid-90s. When China cut off the export of piratical discs in the late 1990s, the pirates packed up their equipment and relocated to more hospitable areas where enforcement was lax or absent. Now we are seeing major problems with DVD production in Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan, Philippines, and Indonesia. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ukraine, and elsewhere in Central Europe are host to factories replicating pirate copies of music CDs. The music industry's problems today are always a danger sign for us, since pirates often start with music and then move on to movies, video games and other products.
Page 51
In the past year, we have also witnessed a major surge of large-scale factory production of DVDs in Russia. Today there are at least 26 optical plants in Russia, including at least five that specialize in the production of DVDs. The number and overall capacity of these plants has more than doubled in the past two years. Nine of these plants are located on property owned by the Russian Government.
Pirate DVDs have devastated the local market in Russia. Pirate DVDs have so saturated the Russian market that the pirates have resorted to selling them on the streets by the kilo. Pirate DVDs are sold everywhere—at street markets, in kiosks, in retail stores and over the Internet.
Those 26 plants in Russia currently have capacity to replicate about 300 million DVDs and CDs a year; legitimate demand in Russia is approximately 18 million units. This excess capacity points to the fact that the Russian pirates are targeting export markets—OUR export markets. Piracy in Russia poses a major threat to revenues across Europe. In 2002 MPA's anti-piracy operations seized pirate Russian DVDs in markets across Central and Eastern Europe. In July a raid at a retail market in Poland turned up over 4000 copies of pirate discs from Russia. Those discs contained 15 different language tracks—from Finnish and Swedish to Greek and Turkish, Dutch, Danish, to Indian and Arabic. If bold actions aren't taken quickly to shut down this piracy, American sales of copyrighted works to Western Europe—our most lucrative market in the world—will be demolished by these pirated imports from Russia. The time to act is now before these criminals further build out their distribution networks and alliances throughout Central and Western Europe.
Page 52
Even before large-scale factory production has been brought under control, we are now seeing the rapid growth of local burning of movies and other forms of copyrighted content onto blank recordable media—CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. This kind of piracy is more dispersed geographically, since the piracy takes place in medium to small ''labs'' with banks of CD burners, but is often still highly organized. The retail markets in Taiwan are filled with this kind of pirate product; not coincidentally, Taiwan is one of the world's largest producers and exporters of blank optical discs, fueling this problem around the world.
Joan P. Borsten Vidov:
We are proud to have contributed to the safeguarding and promotion of Russia's rich artistic heritage. We accomplished this by investing millions of dollars to acquire, repair, restore, and distribute these films, making them accessible for the first time to the general public outside the former USSR. The Soviets had freely ''borrowed'' Western literature and music to make some of the best animated films—a bad habit that did not end after the USSR signed its first intellectual property convention in 1973. So we also had to plead and cajole representatives of these writers and musicians to license us the rights necessary to keep these films alive...
The most significant advance in the protection of foreign copyright proprietors' rights in the USSR occurred in 1973 when the Soviet Union acceded to the Universal Copyright Convention and for the first time in history granted broad legal protection in USSR to the works of foreign authors. This step forward was the direct byproduct of the intensive trade negotiations between the United States and the USSR that began in 1972. One of the special concerns of the Soviets in these negotiations was the legal protection abroad of Soviet technology. The Soviet government was desirous of expanding the sales and licenses of Soviet technology in the United States, but the Soviets believed that this would not be possible unless the U.S. eliminated the 30 percent withholding tax on royalties earned by Soviet organizations. In the commercial negotiations that followed in 1972 and 1973, the U.S. government negotiators offered to rescind the withholding tax if the Soviets would recognize the rights of U.S. copyright proprietors and compensate them for the use of their works. The culmination of this negotiation was Soviet accession to the Universal copyright convention...
PREPARED STATEMENT OF TIMOTHY P. TRAINER
The International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) would like to thank the distinguished members of the Subcommittee for the opportunity to offer its views with respect to the links between intellectual property theft and organized crime and terrorism.
The IACC is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization devoted solely to combating product counterfeiting and piracy. Formed in 1978, today it is comprised of a cross section of business and industry—from autos, apparel, luxury goods, and pharmaceuticals, to food, software and entertainment—the IACC's members' combined annual revenues exceed $650 billion. The touchstone of the IACC's mission is to combat counterfeiting and piracy by promoting laws, regulations and directives designed to render the theft of intellectual property undesirable and unprofitable. The IACC serves as an umbrella organization, offering anticounterfeiting programs designed to increase protection for patents, trademarks, copyrights, service marks, trade dress and trade secrets.
Critical to the IACC's purpose is its belief that acts of counterfeiting create severe public health and safety hazards, as well as economic harm. The IACC supports government actions that will ultimately result in increased enforcement, lead to the prosecution of intellectual property infringers, and create a strong deterrent to counterfeiters and pirates. In pursuing its mission, the IACC provides law enforcement officials with information and training to identify counterfeit and pirate products and in the methods of product security to prevent the infringement of its members' intellectual property rights.
Page 150
In an effort to create conditions under which its members' intellectual property rights are safe from illegal copying, infringement and other forms of theft, the IACC engages in substantive dialogue with governments and intergovernmental organizations worldwide. In pursuing its mission, the IACC provides law enforcement officials with information and training to identify counterfeit and pirate products and in the methods of product security to prevent the infringement of its members' valuable intellectual property rights.
SCOPE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT
There are no product lines, corporations, or consumers that escape the counterfeiters' and/or pirates' reach. Dangerous counterfeit products have appeared in retail stores across the United States. Organized crime is increasingly attracted by counterfeiting's high profits and relatively low criminal penalties. In addition, the manufacture, distribution and sale of counterfeit goods rob local economies of precious tax revenues, and costs Americans jobs.
Many pirate and counterfeit goods are not as visible as you might think. Many people think of the counterfeits and pirated products purely in terms of street vendors' products—music CDs, sunglasses, t-shirts, hats, cosmetics, cell phone covers, handbags and watches—bearing easily recognizable and known names and logos. But, on a different level, product counterfeiters and pirates are trading on names and logos often associated with things such as razor blades, shampoos, pharmaceuticals, foods, hand tools, auto parts, light bulbs, film, skin lotions, laundry detergent, band-aids, insecticides, batteries, cigarettes and practically anything else that bears a name that consumers are familiar with in the market place. Very few products, if any, are beyond the reach of skilled counterfeiters.
Page 151
PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY DANGERS
Of particular concern to IACC members and consumers is the increasing availability of fakes that present severe health and safety risks. For example, the World Health Organization estimates that counterfeit drugs account for ten percent of all pharmaceuticals. That number can rise to as high as sixty percent (60%) in developing countries.(see footnote 14) In another case, and according to a federal indictment made public in May 2002, U.S. Customs officials seized 59,000 bottles of counterfeit vodka in a Massachusetts warehouse. The fake vodka had been imported from a former Soviet republic.(see footnote 15) In Estonia in 2001, illicit vodka containing methyl alcohol killed 60 people.(see footnote 16) The problems, however, do not end with pharmaceuticals and alcohol.
In the 1990's, a major shampoo manufacturer was forced to place half-page advertisements in at least 27 national newspapers informing the general public that counterfeit versions of its shampoo were available in retail stores. Of particular concern to the manufacturer was the fact that the fake shampoo may have contained bacteria, risking infection in users with weakened immune systems.(see footnote 17) Even more disturbing was the case where the operational life of counterfeit bearing seal spacers removed from a United Airlines plane were found to be only 600 hours—the genuine parts had an operational life of 20,000 hours. The fake parts came complete with fake boxes, labels and paperwork and were only discovered because of a very alert maintenance technician.(see footnote 18) Finally, counterfeit-labeled infant formula found its way onto shelves in grocery stores in 16 states.(see footnote 19)...
These are just a few examples. For more stories about the well documented links between intellectual property theft and organized crime and terrorism, please refer to the attached document containing a list of relevant public source news articles and government reports compiled by the IACC.
The IACC believes that the best deterrent to counterfeiting and piracy is criminal penalties that result in actual imprisonment. Based on this policy, the IACC has led efforts that resulted in the passage of the 1984 Trademark Act that established federal criminal sanctions for trademark counterfeiting,(see footnote 28) the Anticounterfeiting Consumer Protection Act of 1996 that increased civil penalties and provided U.S. Customs with the authority to assess administrative fines against those that import counterfeit products,(see footnote 29) and the establishment of specific criminal provisions for trademark counterfeiting in 31 states and the District of Columbia. By providing federal and state law enforcement officials with the jurisdiction to prosecute counterfeiters, and U.S. Customs with the discretion to penalize known importers of counterfeit merchandise, the IACC has sought to promote a comprehensive enforcement system to stop illegal goods at the borders, punish manufacturers and distributors of counterfeit products in interstate commerce, and address counterfeiting at the retail level within the states, counties and cities where it is most prevalent.
Recent world events have caused federal and state government officials to correctly reevaluate the mission priorities of law enforcement personnel to address national security issues. As pointed out above, the IACC is concerned that the low risk, high-profit nature of counterfeiting and piracy has and will continue to attract the attention of organized crime and terrorist groups looking to fund their operations. The IACC and its members look forward to working with Congress, law enforcement and the new Department of Homeland Security to identify and eliminate links between counterfeiting and the funding of terrorist groups that may arise in the course of protecting U.S. economic interests and intellectual property rights.
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/ju
International Association for
the Study of Organized Crime
http://www.iasoc.net/news.htm
TURNING A CONVICTION INTO PUBLIC EDUCATION: In December 2002, David Rocci pled guilty to conspiracy to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Rocci was the owner and operator of an Internet site dedicated to providing information about copyright infringement (www.iSONEWS.com). Rocci used this web site sell circumvention devices known as Amod chips, which defeat security protections in the Microsoft Xbox---allowing unlimited play of pirated games on the Xbox gaming console. As a condition of his guilty plea, Rocci transferred his domain name and website to the U.S. government. In an imaginative move, the government replaced iSONEWS.com with a new web page providing information about the case U.S. v. Rocci, as well as a general anti-piracy message outlining the potential criminal consequences for engaging in illegal piracy. This case was the first time that the United States assumed control of an active domain name in an intellectual property case. After 2 weeks, the site received over 550,000 hits.
SOFTWARE PIRACY: Don Clark, “Microsoft reports big loss in sales from piracy ring,” The Wall Street Journal, (April 22, 2002). Microsoft lost between $200-$300 million from an international piracy ring that operated for at least 2 years involving 50 suspects with links to organized crime. The FBI's Operation Firestorm resulted in 27 arrests for copyright infringement, fraud and money laundering. Mirza and Sameena Ali were charged in a scheme involving Microsoft's educational discount program. Some of the defendants stole access codes to unlock Windows XP. Adobe Systems and Symantec products also were counterfeited. Most of the arrests were in Silicon Valley with ties to Pakistan and Taiwan.
Volkov, Vadim. Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Capitalism (Cornell University Press, 2002).
Felia Allum and Renate Siebert. Organized Crime and the Challenge to Democracy (Routledge, 2003).
Chin, Kolin. Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise, and Ethnicity (Oxford University Press, 2000).
"Is It Safe?"
http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/Read
Copy protection has taken on many forms since Hollywood studios began fighting the villainous VCR back in the 1970s.... Whatever their (mis)fortunes on the Web, technology companies have enjoyed some success in fighting disc copy protection in the streets: March 2002 saw the first-ever publicized bust of DVD-R pirates in the Bronx, New York, and the LAPD nabbed a similar piracy ring in Long Beach in July. While these busts brought down relatively small operations, they appear for now to be proportional to the problem in the U.S. Piracy overseas, however, particularly in Asia, continues to run rampant. While there is a thirst for American culture, there is also a distaste for perceived American greed, so until these attitudes change, would-be protectors of copyrighted content will continue to wage an uphill battle.
Statistics
Software piracy grew from 37 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2001 around the world, according to the Business Software Alliance's (BSA) seventh annual survey on global software piracy. "In the seven years that we have conducted this study, this is the first time piracy has increased two years in a row. This is particularly disturbing in light of the fact that more and more software companies are moving their distribution systems to the Internet," says BSA president and CEO Robert Holleyman. Vietnam, China, and Indonesia topped the piracy charts although in the last year we've seen minor percentage declines there. North America continued to be the region with the lowest piracy rate at 26 percent, up one percentage point from 25 percent in 2000. However, North America accounted for the third-highest piracy dollar losses, totaling $1.9 billion, down from $2.9 billion in 2000. That decline can be deceiving. BSA attributes it to the strong U.S. dollar relative to local currencies and to lower software prices.
The Recording Industry Association (RIAA) says they were more successful in busting up illegal operations in 2001 than they were in 2000. Raids on more than 230 distribution operations and more than 145 manufacturing operations led to the seizure of 2.8 million unauthorized CD-Rs. Raids aside, the RIAA says the music industry loses more than $1 billion per year from the illegal activities conducted in the world's four leading pirate marketplaces: Brazil, China, Russia, and Mexico. Not including losses resulting from Internet piracy, the sale of pirate recordings exceeds $4.2 billion worldwide.
Dave Gussow, "For entertainment industry, resistance is usually futile"
http://www.sptimes.com/2003/09/15/Techn
It has balked before, at the player piano and the VCR. Now its target is file sharing. Will the entertainment industry again fail at its efforts to thwart a new technology it feels threatened by? ...
Looking back, some of the lawsuits involving the entertainment industry and new technology may seem quaint. In 1908, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Apollo Co., which made player pianos, did not violate the copyright of the songs Little Cotton Dolly and Kentucky Babe, held by the White-Smith Music Publishing Co., by putting the music on piano rolls.
In 1976, Universal Studios and Walt Disney Productions sued to block Sony's Betamax video cassette recorder, saying they wanted surcharges added to the cost of the machines and blank tapes to make up for the loss of copyright royalties.
It took eight years, but the Supreme Court ultimately decided in Sony's favor, with the majority finding that people taping TV programs "is legitimate fair use." The Betamax eventually died, with the VHS format becoming dominant, but the precedent stood.
One of the first real tests of the digital age came in 1998. The Recording Industry Association of America sued to stop the sale of the Diamond Rio, the first MP3 digital music player, saying it would encourage piracy. The association lost.
Last year, 5.5-million portable music players were sold in the United States, according to market research company IDC, a number predicted to grow to 19.3-million units by 2007...
Music has drawn most of the attention so far because the technology has not evolved to make movie downloads fast and easy - yet.
Even on a fast digital subscriber line connection, downloading a 136-minute movie can take 75 minutes. (A faster connection can accomplish the task in about 15 minutes.) In fact, the movie industry's main nemesis at the moment is illegal copying of DVDs, mostly in Asia.
But the industry expects file sharing to become an issue as technology advances and more people use high-speed Internet connections, said Fritz Attaway, executive vice president of the movie group. "We don't have a clear idea of how to solve the problem. It is probably a combination of technology, education and legislation."
Martin Ryder, "The Global Digital Divide: Technical Responses and Social Implications"
http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/dig_
And herein lies the central problem posed in this volume: the Digital Divide - the cultural disparity that results between those who are highly connected into this global information interchange and the rest of the world. There are more Internet Service Providers in New York City than in the whole of Africa (Adam, 2002). In today's world where 80% of the population lack access to basic telecommunications facilities and where nearly half the people have never made a telephone call, there is a small, highly connected segment of us who are creating rapid changes that impact the lives and habitat of all the rest. The industrialized countries with only 15% of the world's population represent 88% of the Internet user population. South Asia, home for 20% of humanity, makes up less than 1% of Internet users. At the present time, a greater plurality of the world's population remains isolated, disconnected, and uninvolved with regard to the multiple changes that affect them, their habitat, and those who will follow after them (UNESCO, 1998)...
The philosophical stance of constructivism is offered in contrast to determinism. A constructivist view of technology in society stresses free agency, individual will, conscious deliberation and choice among human agents. Constructivists insist that people are active agents and not helpless automatons or passive victims; they are always able to make deliberate choices and to exercise control over change. Constructivism argues that human feasibility is not tightly defined by external objective forces alone. There is generally a surplus of workable solutions to any given problem. Technology, including the technology of language, is just another dependent social variable and not the key to the riddle of history.
From a constructivist point of view, social actors make the final choice among several technically viable options. If one option is closed, an agentive actor selects another route to accomplish a critical task. In the real world, the problem-definition often changes in the course of solution (Feenberg, 1992).
A good example of agentive activity by marginalized people is the so-called Radio Defiance Campaign that emerged in South Africa in the late 1980s (see Michaud, 2003). It was a time when the radio airwaves were strictly controlled by the white ruling class. What black South Africans heard on the radio was white-owned and white-controlled programming. In the black townships the programming promoted the notion that apartheid was good, that it was natural and inevitable, and that any expression of resistance amounted to nothing less than terrorism. Attempts toward community controlled programming in broadcasting were strictly out of the question, and black South Africans had become generally alienated from the medium of radio.
During this period, tape cassette players were becoming popular in black townships. Under the leadership of the African National Congress, people began to produce their own programming, mostly music with news and community interest productions, using the medium of magnetic cassette tape! These produced 'radio' broadcasts were passed from hand to hand in small communities. In time, a sofisticated distribution network emerged, where tapes and copies of tapes found circulation into the tens of thousands. In townships where official radio programming was completely ignored, the cassette distribution system developed into a vibrant phenomenon. A complex actor network had been created, connecting human and non-human agents into a viable, coherent, collective organism that was capable of translating the absence of community radio into a force of social change. The Radio Defiance Campaign was a small but significant factor in community organizing that eventually toppled the apartheid regime.
It has been argued that communication technology is a critical factor for influencing social organization and change. But technology is simply one factor among many. Social change is too complex and too subtle to be explained in reductionist terms of media and message. Grand theories tend to ignore the socio-historical contexts. Social change involves an interaction of social, cultural and economic forces as well as scientific and technological influences.
One grand theory about the digital divide suggests that the marginalized will remain silent until they have direct access to the Internet and they have mastered the skills necessary to use the technology effectively. But the example of the Zapatista Movement in Chiapas Mexico suggests otherwise. The manner in which the Zapatista rebellion was covered on the Internet has become one of the most successful examples of the use of computer communications by grassroots social movements. Local Zapatista support was well established in Chiapas. And the human connections with multiple communities outside Southern Mexico was a growing phenomenon. There was no sophisticated ICT network in Chiapas. There were no skilled technicians to wire these connections. There was no government grant or NGO benefactor to underwrite this project.
Gustav Guldberg and Johannes Sundén, "Pirates and Merchants - An Ongoing Struggle on the Hightech Seas"
http://www.msi.vxu.se/forskn/exarb/2
"A BRIEF BUT INCOMPLETE HISTORY OF BOOTLEGS"
http://log.on.ca/hotwacks/zhist.htm
Geoff Boucher, "Mix tapes: Piracy or talent mother lode?"
www.chicagotribune.com/technology/ chi-030430epmixtapes,1,5446515.story
"Screen Digest - Global Media Intelligence"
