FEW ANSWERS TO COUNTERFEITING EMERGE AT BRUSSELS CONFERENCE

The lack of participation by the entertainment industries was surprising to some, given the content owners’ efforts to publicize and combat piracy and counterfeiting. MPAA members were listed but not in evidence the first day, possibly because delegates weren’t charged to attend, so the number of names on the acceptance list was greater than the number of delegates in the hall. Iain Grant, chief enforcement officer-International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) was present, but only to chair a roundtable discussion.

Organizers of the conference refused to give reporters access to the conference hall speeches, allowing them to attend only a formal news conference. No transcripts of conference speeches were available, and no list of attendees. For a while, plasma screens outside the hall relayed closed-circuit coverage of the proceedings -- until the organizers realized their mistake and switched off the sound. Rita Hayes, WIPO deputy dir.-gen., earlier had encouraged reporters to “listen to the experienced speakers over the next 2 days.” Hayes later told our Europe correspondent, “I fell out of my chair when I learned that the conference was closed to the press.” Reporters were allowed to visit a small exhibition at which companies displayed anti- counterfeiting technologies but often refused to say how their systems worked.

Wolfgang Starein, WIPO dir.-enforcement, tried to explain the lack of input from the music and movie industries: “The conference is about industrial property counterfeiting, with trademarks and designs, rather than copyright content,” he told us. Bill Dobson, exec. dir. of the Global Business Leaders Alliance Against Counterfeiting, said: “We are focusing on the trademark aspect. We didn’t exclude music and movie people. But they have already done such a good job of creating awareness and have banded together -- now the others need to coalesce.” After the event, Congress organizers said they'll reconsider their press exclusion policy and solicit more input from the music and movie industries if there’s another conference next year.

Compared with the content industries’ high-profile problems, Congress delegates from some industries admitted they'd been unaware of the extent of counterfeiting of their branded hard goods -- and were clueless as how to remedy it. “I was shocked by the facts that came out of Davos [a workshop at the World Economic Forum in Jan. 2003]. These are shocking, unknown problems,” said Anthony Simon, pres.-mktg. for Unilever Foods. “Imagine spending 36 years in the business and only recently understanding the dimension of the problem. We have an obligation to increase awareness -- together.”

Simon’s remarks were echoed by Interpol Secy.-Gen. Ronald Noble: “No one has ever pressured me about what we are doing about counterfeiting. There has been no pressure. No pressure at all. I find that shocking,” he told reporters. “It’s a global problem. All the pressure is coming from the bottom up, not from above. There is no pressure from national or international bodies to do anything about fighting IP crime. It might just be on the radar screen. But it will not be a priority unless some horrible event focuses attention.”

WIPO’s Hayes said: “Everyone knows the problem exists but we don’t have good statistics. Big business needs something to show governments. I want this [Congress] to provide a concrete path, not just be a talking shop. Private companies just look at sales and say they are up or down and then say they are losing billions of dollars. There has to be better information.” On the subject of content piracy, Hayes said: “ Education is the key. People don’t realize what IP is. If you steal a car it is theft. But if you steal someone’s work it is not important. We have published comic books in 6 languages that talk about the importance of not copying.”

WCO spokesmen said the main event was closed to “protect sensitive information.” But delegates leaving the hall throughout the day told reporters they'd heard nothing sensitive. The IFPI’s Grant told us the first 3 speakers in a closed session had all echoed what the IFPI and MPA have been saying many years -- organized crime and terrorists are the main practitioners and beneficiaries of piracy and counterfeiting.

Documents IFPI gave delegates revealed its enforcers recently found a pirate CD plant inside a Siberian prison, set up by the authorities and run by inmates 24 hours a day. Grant cited 3 examples of “cooperation in action since the Interpol Intellectual Property Crime Action Group was created in 2002” -- all of which followed from information on music crimes provided to Interpol by the IFPI, he said.

Counterfeiting apparently is so rampant that the WCO admitted even its own CD-ROM data base of product codes has been counterfeited on recordable CDs, and pirates offer it for sale on the cheap to Customs posts.