Source: Gazeta de novo - RS, 04/07/2009

“Curitiba was chosen for the good work that the Municipality has done in combating the sale of pirated products”, says the director of the Inspection Department of the Municipal Secretariat of Urbanism, José Luiz de Mello Filippetto.

Cidade Livre de Pirataria integrates the actions of the strategic plan of the National Council to Combat Piracy and Offenses against Intellectual Property (CNCP), created in 2004, which is linked to the Ministry of Justice.

The Cidade Livre da Pirataria project will also be launched in Brasília, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Ribeirão Preto (SP). In Curitiba, it will be implemented later this semester. “The municipality is increasingly engaged in the fight against illegal trade”, adds Filippetto.

In order for the project to be put into practice, the Secretariat of Urbanism will provide the National Council for Combating Piracy with information about the actions taken by Curitiba and the number of seizures made in the city. According to Filippetto, in the first six months of this year, 82.351 units of pirated products were seized in Curitiba. Of this total, 67.941 are DVDs; 10.970, CDs and 3.440, cigarette cases.

The City of Curitiba has six teams of inspectors who travel the city to seize pirated goods and also products that are traded without authorization. All inspectors were trained at the Paranaense Association to Combat Piracy.

“We have a constant challenge, piracy is associated with organized crime. If we close in on one region, criminals quickly migrate to another. Therefore, the inspection must be permanent ”, says Filippetto.