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Pakistan, the hotbed of piracy
"If requisite improvements are not made by Pakistan to remedy the deficiencies which have adversely affected the US copyright owners, Pakistan’s GSP benefits should be suspended or withdrawn in whole or in part," says the IIPA’s "2003 Special 301 Report." The IIPA recommends that Pakistan - which has been on America’s "Watch List" for a decade - be elevated to the "Priority Watchlist" because it has a thriving digital underground that churns out pirated CDs, DVDs and CD ROMs of music, audio-visual, business software, video games and reference software. It says optical disc piracy went out of control in 2002 while the government took no steps to crack down on production of such material. The report notes that IIPA knew of five factory locations in Pakistan where eight firms operate optical disc production lines. Based on import of raw materials, production may have risen as high as 66 million discs per year. "Legitimate domestic demand is roughly seven million discs, resulting in more than a 9-to-1 ratio of discs produced to possible legitimate domestic demand, meaning that Pakistan is exporting its problem to the world," the report suggests. IIPA data regarding known shipments of pirated products bear out the disturbing trend: from November 2001 to mid-March 2002, a total of 120 air shipments were sent from Karachi Airport in southern Pakistan, to various countries, including approximately 476,663 pirated optical discs. From mid-March to mid-April 2002, a total of 22 air shipments were sent from Karachi Airport to countries, including approximately 1,00,452 pirated discs. Asif Bhatti of the software firm eZine Technologies says that people prefer to buy cheap software if it is available freely. "A legit Windows XP licensed product costs around $96, but the pirated product is available for less than a dollar," he points out. Similarly, licensed Microsoft Office costs $ 375, and at discounted rates it is available for around $150. The pirated software in contrast costs just $ 1.25 in the local market. Take a stroll through shopping arcades such as Rainbow Centre in Karachi or Hafeez Center in the eastern city of Lahore, and one can’t miss the hundreds of retail outlets crammed with pirated software. The software pirates are so daring that even the duty-free area in Karachi International Airport has a shop that sells pirated discs. Last month, the police arrested three unauthorised software sellers and seized 2,554 CDs during a raid in Lahore. The raid was conducted along with officials of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a body of the world’s leading computer companies formed to curb software piracy. Action against companies suspected of patronising pirated software, unauthorised resellers and hard disk loaders will continue until the piracy rate is dramatically reduced, declares BSA official Azeem Ahmed Khan. "Trends in Software Piracy 1994-2002," a BSA study released a few months ago, says that Pakistan’s software piracy rate was 95 percent in 1994 (which means 95 per cent of all software used in the country was illegal) but had fallen to 80 per cent in 2002."The country ranks seven among the 25 countries with the highest software piracy rates in the world," maintains the co-chairman of BSA (Middle East), AI Redha. The head of the sub-committee on intellectual property rights (IPR) of the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI), Hasan Ali Khan in an interview with IANS says, "Pakistan is losing around $160 million annually in revenues because of counterfeiting, trademark infringement and copyright violation." Ali Khan says that foreign and local investors are also shy of investing in a country where intellectual property rights laws are not enforced effectively. Thanks to the IPR infringement and violation, and the fact that little or nothing has been done to eliminate this menace, he says Pakistan is losing credibility internationally. Though the IIPA slams Pakistan’s inadequate laws, senior copyright lawyer Arif Saeed feels that Pakistan’s Copyright (Amendment) Ordinance 2000 has enough teeth to tackle the issue. The Ordinance has brought Pakistan’s law closer to compliance with the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and strengthened certain enforcement provisions, he says. For instance, the
amendment provides for increased criminal penalties of up to three years
imprisonment or a fine of $1,660, doubled for subsequent offences. Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Science and Technology Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari says the government is drafting a new law to stop the misuse of information technology. The draft law will be
presented before the federal cabinet in a month. "Under the law, a
cyber crime force or an investigation wing will be established in the
Federal Investigation Agency and other law enforcing agencies," he
says. — IANS |
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ACCUSING
Pakistan of being one of the world’s leading software bootleggers, the
International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has asked the US to
suspend trade benefits to it, reports OneWorld.net. The alliance has
also filed a petition with the US government to evaluate whether
Pakistan continues to qualify for trade benefits under the generalised
system of preferences (GSP) as the pirates of cyberspace have a free run
here.