THE news did not grab the front-page headlines as an upgrade in the government’s credit rating might do. Nonetheless, the fact that the Philippines is off the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) 2015 Regular and Priority Watch List for intellectual-property rights (IPR) violations is important.
This is the second year in a row that the Philippines has not been on “the list.”
IPR and the violations thereof are a nasty, and sometimes difficult, issue. The “watch list” has been published since 1989. Prior to that first “Special 301 Report,” tourists going to Singapore, that model country for the rule of law, could buy a pirated cassette of almost any music on the planet. Street vendors would make copies to order while-you-wait. When the US started shaming nations about these copyright violations, Singapore suddenly got religion and clamped down on pirated music.
China though has always been the master of sleaze when it comes to violations of IPR on everything, from music to designer clothes and accessories. It is, of course, not the Chinese people that are sleazy but the government. Yet China, the supposed global engine of economic growth, feels no embarrassment for ripping off both individuals and companies of their property.
It is a multibillion-dollar-per-year business of theft and the Chinese government has the thickest face in the world when it comes to this highway robbery.
On the Priority Watch List, the 10 biggest offending nations include our good neighbors, Indonesia, Thailand and China rounded out by India, Russia, Argentina, Pakistan, Venezuela, Chile and Algeria of all places. There are 26 counties on the watch list.
The legal issue is clear and unequivocal. You do not copy someone else’s design or duplicate another person’s work output and sell it without giving them a piece of the profits. We know that there are manufacturing facilities in China, which on one side of the building make genuine products and on the other side make the fakes with different materials, usually inferior.
The argument, and it might be considered valid to a certain extent, is that buyers are purchasing the fakes with complete knowledge of it and could not or would not buy the original due to the great price differential.
But still, the original designer has the right to agree or not agree to that method of marketing.
The sellers of pirated computer software and movies and music cannot make that argument since it is outright illegal duplication. But who is the worse criminal? The sellers could not exist without buyers similar to the illegal drug market. No one is getting fooled and every buyer knows it is pirated.
The USTR even has a list of “Notorious Markets” around the world that sell pirated goods including web sites and physical locations like the Seventh Kilometer Market in Odessa, Ukraine. No, none of our notorious markets ever made that list.
The Philippines was cited this year for improved IPR protection and civil and administrative enforcement. That’s good. It shows that we are mature enough to do the right thing.
1 comment
Do not be fooled.
Current IPR is too abusive.
It is designed to protect WESTERN INTEREST na tubo lugao.