Salvador joins the Free Piracy City

By ETCO
09/09/2013

The capital of Bahia is the eighth Brazilian city to enter the project, which aims to municipalize the fight against illegal trade. The goal is for all host cities to the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil to be part of the program by the end of this year.

Salvador, capital of Bahia, on July 12 became the eighth Brazilian city to be part of the Cidade Livre de Piracy Program, of the National Council for Combating Piracy and Offenses against Intellectual Property of the Ministry of Justice (CNCP / MJ), under the management of ETCO, which aims to municipalize measures to combat illegal trade.

The agreement was signed by Mayor Antônio Carlos Magalhães Neto at the headquarters of the Chamber of Shopkeepers (CDL) of Salvador. The Executive Secretary of the National Council to Combat Piracy (CNCP), Rodolfo Tamanaha; the President of CDL Bahia, Antônio Tawil; the President of CDL Salvador, Geraldo Cordeiro; the Superintendent of Land Use Control and Planning (Sucom), Sílvio Pinheiro; and the Superintendent of Transalvador, Fabrizzio Muller. ETCO was represented by consultant Márcio Gonçalves.

“We live in a city marked by informality and the problem of street vendors scattered on the streets is not only economic, but also social. We understand that, with dialogue, it is possible to organize informal trade. And informal commerce is directly associated with piracy. There is a group of people who are at the service of crime, who are competing unfairly with our trade, ”said the Salvadoran mayor during the event.

Started in 2010 and already implemented in São Paulo, Curitiba, Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Osasco, Rio de Janeiro and Vitória, Cidade Livre de Pirataria aims to municipalize the fight against illegal trade in products, so that the participating cities actively assume the combating piracy, developing actions in conjunction with municipal, state and federal institutions, as well as representatives of civil society. Thus, all anti-piracy measures, such as inspection, product seizure operations and awareness campaigns, among others, are now being worked on in an integrated manner and coordinated by the city hall, which guarantees more efficiency and better results.

As the program's manager since 2009, ETCO's goal is to expand its membership of the country's main municipalities. This year, the priority is the host cities for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, such as Salvador, which will have six games played at the Fonte Nova Arena.

“The successful experience of São Paulo, the first municipality to be part of the program, shows that it is possible to succeed in combating piracy, placing the matter above any political differences”, says ETCO Executive President, Roberto Abdenur. According to him, “the practice of piracy is one of the most harmful forms of unfair competition, since, by subverting intellectual property rules to obtain illicit commercial advantages, the piracy 'industry' discourages free competition and inhibits investments in research and technology for the development of new products ”.

In turn, the president of the CNCP, Flavio Crocce Caetano, states that “the partnership established with the municipalities aims to debate and propose actions that take into account the local particularities of each municipality, making public policies to combat piracy more effective. ”. In the same vein, Rodolfo Tamanaha, Executive Secretary of CNCP, asserts that “Cidade Livre de Pirataria encourages local actors, led by the respective city hall, to present the main problems related to piracy, which serve to support the actions to confront the problem” .