US Demands Action Against Piracy

The US Government has again asked Pakistan’s economic minister Ashraf Hayat, to take effective action against eight illegal CD and DVD plants run by some influential businessmen in Karachi, which are involved in infringement of intellectual property rights.

Mr Hayat said the USA wanted immediate action against eight illegal (compact discs) CD and DVD plants and if Pakistan does not do anything in this regard, then the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in its next review, scheduled for April, would probably withdraw generalised system of preferences for Pakistan.

Keeping in view the latest communication, Pakistan may take stern action against one or two of them to pacify the US authorities, the official said.

The USA had earlier asked Pakistan to close the eight illegal plants, but the government did not taken any action, instead it kept on concentrating on the CD and DVD shops and arresting people who were found smuggling pirated CDs and DVDs but this process has not yielded the results required by the USA.

The eight known facilities in Pakistan (Karachi) produced 180 million discs in 2003, nearly all illegal, and most of them were exported to at least 46 other countries. “The US companies and other developed countries suffered a loss of $68.5 million in 1999 which swelled to $126 million in 2003, in Pakistan only,” the official said.

“Over 12,000, retail outlets, kiosks and stores remain in operation in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Faisalabad, Peshawar, Quetta and elsewhere, selling pirated products for a fraction of the original cost,” the official said. “Markets like Rainbow Centre in Karachi and Hafeez Centre in Lahore still contain hundreds of retail outlets filled with pirated products, he added.

The official said that during the talks on bilateral investment treaty between the two countries, which were scheduled to be held on February 7-9 in London, US, would give a tough time to Pakistan on the issue of ongoing massive infringement of Intellectual Property Rights.

The official said the US authorities in January had given the list of the CD plants and the tycoons who were involved in the business. To a question the official said the interior ministry officials had admitted that some of the plants were difficult to access even by the police.

To a question, the official said that most of the pirated CDs were exported to Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Nepal, New Zealand, Maldives, Mauritius, Mozambique, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Syria, UAE, UK and USA.

“In 2002 it is estimated that total of 47,131,000 CDs were exported. Out of this 45 percent were audio, 20 percent video, 5 percent MP3 and 30 percent were software CDS.”