Source: Jornal do Commercio - PE - Recife / PE - 01/09/2010

The cities of Pernambuco, starting with Greater Recife, show today, in the streets and in their daily lives, what the ineffectiveness of some laws and the powerlessness of the public power mean in the face of contraventions that have an impact on order, security and the economy. A social disease that can be seen everywhere in the Center of Recife, at any time of the day and even as a modern "enterprise" in open country markets. It is the sale of pirated products, which are becoming a serious plague for the economy, just as crack is the most terrible plague that has become a public health problem.

The seriousness of the problem of selling pirated products is more exposed to each investigation by class or public security entities, to each police attack, as occurs in the most central streets and neighborhoods of Recife regularly, with a very high rate of recurrence. Now, another data has already been measured that further aggravates the problem of piracy among us: research reveals that 93,6% of the people interviewed are aware that it is a criminal business and 70,5% admit to buying regularly. , pirated products.

People do not seem to realize the harm that this activity does to the labor market and public revenues, much less that it is associated with organized crime, according to studies carried out by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). Unquestioned surveys show that piracy is related to arms, drugs and even terrorism trafficking. Another activity identified with piracy is the work of inhuman children. Despite this amazing picture revealed by Interpol, people do not seem impressed. Not even when it is announced that Brazil stops collecting a few billion reais and it is this money that enters the banditry circuit.

This misdemeanor goes far beyond CDs, DVDs, glasses, sneakers, perfumes and pirated watches as they are exposed and occupying large central areas of Recife. Recently, in announcing the result of yet another action to combat piracy, the Brazilian Association of Software Companies showed Pernambuco as the leader in the ranking of seizures. One caveat, however, attenuated this position of our State, when the Anti-Piracy Working Group of that association informed that Pernambuco has as a differential a police station specialized in the crime of piracy.

However, it is a problem that is difficult to solve, mainly because it has already reached segments that represent a serious public health problem, such as drug piracy, which requires a much broader, federalized, systematic treatment, including for deepening. of studies on currents that defend the decriminalization of piracy and, even, disturbing signs such as those coming from abroad, mainly with the founding of political parties - such as the Pirate Party, from Sweden - whose program is to change property legislation industrial. Intellectual property is more openly questioned, where there are major controversies, including the legal approach that gives them shelter, as recently seen in the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais.

There is a current in that Court that defends the decriminalization of piracy, under the argument that modern criminal law does not act on all morally objectionable conduct, but on those that threaten the harmonious coexistence of society. Hence, the penal sanction could not embrace behavior considered adequate by society. The majority counterpoint has many arguments, but these three lines would suffice in the report of an appeal at the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais: “'Piracy' damages not only the rights of artists and authors, but the entire legal industry and commerce , further increasing unemployment, reducing tax collection, in addition to tarnishing Brazil's image abroad, to the detriment of the whole of society, which must then also be criminally repressed ”.