Project against piracy will be adopted in Curitiba
Source: The State of Paraná - PR - 29/11/2009
Curitiba is about to be the first city in the country to join the project “Free City of Piracy and Illegal Trade”. Next Tuesday, December 1st, an agreement should be signed between the National Council for Combating Piracy and Offenses against Intellectual Property (CNCP), the City Hall and some entities that work with the theme, to make the program viable. . Also part of the program is a draft municipal law, which will create means to combat illegality.
“We found that combating piracy at the federal level is not enough. It is also important to bring this motivation and priority to the municipalities. It is where piracy physically occurs ”, explains professor André Montoro, president of the Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition (Etco), which is one of the organizations involved with the project. For him, although effective, the actions of the Federal Revenue Service and the Federal Police and Federal Highway Police are not enough to combat the problem more closely.
According to Montoro, after Curitiba, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and Ribeirão Preto should adopt the program, still in the pilot phase. In a next step, the idea is to replicate Cidade Livre to the 300 most populous municipalities in the country. The project involves activities, municipal laws and political actions, among other details, which enable the mobilization of organs and institutions around the theme.
Etco's president says that Curitiba was chosen to inaugurate the project for a number of reasons. Size was one of them, since São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are very large centers, where the chances of going wrong would be greater. The fact that Paraná is a state that, due to the border with Paraguay, is very “attacked” by illegal trade also contributed. Finally, he states that the interest of the City Hall was another point in favor.
In the City Hall, the idea is to start the program involving at least two secretariats, Anti-Drugs and Urban Planning, in addition to Health Surveillance and other agencies. The director of intelligence of the Municipal Anti-Drug Secretariat, Hamilton Klein, informs that the actions have not yet been programmed, but Curitiba's involvement in the project should facilitate the integrated work of more municipal agencies.
Klein affirms that the focus of the Anti-Drug Secretariat, for example, is to combat the black market trade in controlled drugs. However, with the project involving more departments, in addition to the CNCP and organizations linked to the subject, the chance that one entity will help the other is greater. “So, whoever is in the project ends up getting involved in everything”, he says.
Recurrent
As much as there is mobilization, there have never been so many entities, public or private, to fight piracy, the trade in illegal products does not seem to decrease in the country. The fact worries the president of Etco, who prefers not to use the term piracy in conversations, because he thinks which gives a “romantic” tone to the subject. "The value generated by illegal trade in Brazil is about three times higher than in more developed countries", he calculates.
For Montoro, the fact that Brazil is one of the balls in the world economy has to be a motivator for a national mobilization to reduce illegal trade. "The population has to understand that an extra change in the illegal purchase of a product does not compensate for the problems caused by this trade", he observes.
“The smuggling routes are always the same. Where weapons and drugs come, there are also bags, for example, ”recalls Montoro. “It's very sophisticated logistics and there are real multinationals in crime involved. The poor of the street vendor is just the end of a chain that uses a series of sophisticated channels ”, he adds.
Consumer is more aware
The behavior of Brazilians in relation to piracy was the subject of a recent national survey by the Trade Federation of Rio de Janeiro (Fecomércio-RJ) and Ipsos. The conclusion was not much different from last year: in August 2009, the percentage of Brazilians who claimed to have consumed any pirated product was 46%, against 47% in the same month of 2008. In the previous two years, the percentage was lower : 42%, which leads to an average of 44% in the last four years.
Despite a drop compared to the previous year, the main pirate product consumed remains the CD 78% of the people surveyed said they had consumed the product in the year, compared to 83% last year. For Fecomércio-RJ, “the expansion of the mp3 market in Brazil, via ipods and cell phones, and the greater dissemination of the use of the internet, which has broadened the practice of“ downloading music through the computer, especially among the consumer audience of pirated products , contributed to the fall.
Second among the most consumed pirated products are DVDs, with 68%, against 69% last year. Despite the stability in the last two years, consumption of the product has increased significantly compared to previous years: in 2006, the percentage of respondents who consumed pirated DVDs was 35% and, in 2007, it rose to 53%.
According to Fecomércio-RJ, the facility for reproducing CD and DVD media, and the high tax burden on these products, helps to explain the situation. The entity informs that, on the products, 1,65% of Social Integration Program (PIS), 7,6% of Contribution for the Financing of Social Security (Cofins), 15% of Tax on Industrialized Products (IPI) and from 17% to 19% of Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS), depending on the State.
And the most affordable price ends up being, according to the survey, the main reason cited by respondents for the purchase of pirated products. In 2009, 94% were surveyed who cited the reason. In the four years of the survey, the average was identical. The second most mentioned reason was that it was easier to find products. The rate, in this case, was much lower: 10%.
For the president of the Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition (Etco), André Montoro, the solution to reduce piracy goes through the difficult point of making people aware of the issue. "It is an immediate advantage for the consumer, but it damages the whole society", he says. He admits, on the other hand, that the price difference counts a lot, and that a reduction in taxes can help to resolve the issue. (HM)