Author: Ana Luísa Westphalen

Source: Estadão - SP - 01/12/2009

ANA LUÍSA WESTPHALEN - Agencia Estado

SÃO PAULO - The Ministry of Justice and the City of São Paulo today signed a cooperation agreement to combat piracy in the capital of São Paulo. The objective of the partnership between the Union and the municipality is, based on anti-piracy initiatives proposed by the new plan, to consolidate a national movement to face illegal trade and crimes against intellectual property. The “Free City of Piracy and Illegal Trade” project does not, however, foresee any practical measures in the short term, such as increased enforcement on the streets. According to the mayor of São Paulo, Gilberto Kassab (DEM), the fight against illegal activity by street vendors, for example, is a gradual process that has been taking place in recent years. "There is a need to raise awareness among the population, the public authorities, civil society, that this illegal trade brings a lot of damage," he claimed.

According to the executive secretary of the Ministry of Justice and president of the National Council to Combat Piracy (CNCP), Luiz Paulo Barreto, the agreement should facilitate proposals for updating legislation on illegal trade, reviewing ways to combat piracy and even creating incentives, such as tax breaks for certain products that face direct competition with counterfeit or smuggled items.

"Illegal trade is very harmful to the city, the numbers are staggering in relation to the municipality's economy," said Kassab, after signing the agreement, this morning, in his office. According to Barreto, due to piracy, around R $ 30 billion a year is no longer collected by municipal coffers, and 2 million formal jobs are no longer created.

In addition to increasing the rigor in punishing crimes linked to the illegal trade in goods, the project will also have an educational character. “We will have measures to raise awareness that it is harmful to buy pirated products. It is not an exaggeration to say that when you buy a pirated product you may be taking the drug to school, the gun to the street, ”said Barreto.

He drew attention to the need for a legislative review. "We have to modernize our laws so that they allow faster seizure of these illegal products." Barreto also foresees that the equivalence of penalties for this type of crime be discussed. “The penalty for crimes against intellectual property, violation of a CD, of a DVD, is from 2 to 4 years, but for counterfeiting a tennis shoe it is from 6 months to 1 year, because the penalty of industrial property is different from intellectual property . ”

São Paulo was the first capital of the country to join the project, which will also be implemented in Curitiba, Brasília, Rio de Janeiro and Ribeirão Preto, cities that already develop local anti-piracy actions. The intention is to create a kind of guide for practices to be applied in other municipalities, as explained by the president of the Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition (ETCO), André Montoro, one of the initiative's partners. "We will analyze which experiences work and, based on the practice in these cities, a list of procedures will be organized that will serve to extend the project to other municipalities."