Previous messages: "John Gilmore on Ukraine doing the right thing, fighting RIAA" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02983.html "U.S. says Ukraine turns blind eye to piracy, levies tariffs" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02977.html Jano tells me this response is from Neil Turkewitz, Sr. VP for International Relations at the RIAA. -Declan --- From: JCabreraat_private To: declanat_private Message-ID: <OFFFAC57DD.D50756A5-ON85256B36.007B17CBat_private> Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2002 17:26:29 -0500 I just read John Gilmore's e-mail concerning the imposition of US sanctions on Ukraine for its failure to adequately protect intellectual property, and thought that I would spend a few minutes to provide the real story for anyone who is interested. First of all, it is absolutely true that the US has imposed economic sanctions on Ukraine as a consequence of its failure to deal with CD piracy. In doing so, the Administration faithfully implemented the directions that it was given by Congress under the statute known as "Special 301" under which Congress directed the Administration to impose such sanctions on countries that fail to adequately and effectively protect intellectual property. Now of course, Mr. Gilmore did not have this completely correct. Gilmore suggests that sanctions were imposed because the Ukrainians failed to adopt an "optical media licensing regime." The reality is that while the vote on this licensing regime may have been the final act precipitating the introduction of sanctions, the sanctions were not introduced because of the Rada's rejection of the bill, but because the Government of Ukraine had violated nearly every provision of a US-Ukraine agreement reached in June of 2000 under which it committed to take a number of steps to address runaway pirate production. The proposed optical media licensing regime was a critical part of the infrastructure without which efforts to address piracy would surely fail, and the failure of the Ukrainian Parliament (Rada) to pass it had much more to do with the influence exerted by the pirates than it did with the notion of freedom fighting. Gilmore's support for the supposed courage of those who rejected this legislation is greatly misplaced, and mistakes corruption and influence for vision and bravery. Unchecked pirate production in Ukraine puts money in the pockets of organized criminal syndicates, and severely undermines the position of Ukrainian and foreign authors, performers, composers and record companies. More fundamentally, piracy undermines Ukraine's economic future and its ability to attract investment and to compete in the global economy. It is my sense that this is nothing to cheer about. If Gilmore did his homework, he would know that organized crime, corruption and bribery are some of the principal impediments to economic and social development in much of Eastern Europe, the CIS and Russia. If Gilmore truly wants to promote the overthrow of oppression, he should support measures designed to introduce the rule of law and to create a fair playing field where the old guard is not in control. Sadly, he laments such measures. The proposed regulations are entirely content neutral and are based on a single practical observation--CD plants that are manufacturing pirate copies are unlikely to want to have their names appear on the discs that they manufacture. By requiring manufacturers to place a unique identifier on all discs that they press, and adopting mechanisms to ensure compliance, countries can effectively create deterrents to pirate production. For most countries, this is a far more attractive solution than trying to deal with piracy after product has already been manufactured, and involves far less government expenditure, surveillance, and other intrusions into private spaces. Gilmore should support initiatives such as the optical media licensing law that are aimed at stopping piracy in relatively public (or at least commercial) settings like CD plants. Gilmore calls this proposed legislation "just another smokescreen for the music mafia." Little did he realize how true these words were, for indeed opposition to content neutral legislation that would have helped Ukraine to address piracy was indeed the work of the "music mafia," but not in the sense that Gilmore intended. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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