Consolidated push for IP rights

By Timothy Sifert

Professionals across many industries are finally considering coming together to put pirates - intellectual property rights (IPR) violators - in their collective line of fire by creating a multi-industry lobbying group. This comes as the U.S., the European Union, the government, and several industry groups continue to ratchet up efforts to combat the costly theft of IP.

Polish business aims to address a truly paramount problem. Many key public and private decision-makers have been hard-pressed to grasp that the sale of contraband music and movies, as well as patent infringements on indispensable but expensive drugs, amount to prosecutable theft and thus have been ineffective in controlling the problem.

Nevertheless, the idea has been pushed to the fore by upcoming EU accession and the recent decision by the United States Trade Representative to put Poland on the Priority Watch List. This list consists of countries that flagrantly violate IP rights, and Poland is among the countries that violate "most the rights of intellectual property." (Lithuania is the only other accession country on the list).

"We want to form a platform through which we would be able to talk to the government and the decision makers," says Sławomir Strojnowski, general manager at Imperial Entertainment Home Video. "We want to do this as soon as possible."

An international conference, chock-a-block with concerned businesspeople and sponsored by the American Chamber of Commerce in Poland, reflected a piqued interest in these important issues last week. And, in the next few weeks, an informal IPR-focused group is to be formed to create more substantive measures.

The group is in its early stages, says Marek Rosiński, partner at Baker & McKenzie and chairman of the IPR Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce. "It's without a name, a structure, or business plan so far." He adds, however, that he would like to see the group pool together the interests of various industries, in order to spur viable lobbying efforts and also to provide other ancillary services.

Typically, the more 'glitzy' audiovisual and software industries have been spotlighted by the concerned business public, via industry-specific organizations. The Polish Society of the Phonographic Industry (ZPAV), Foundation of Audiovisual Works' Protection (FOTA) and the Business Software Alliance (BSA) have each been very hands-on in battling IP violations as one of their respective industries' most important woes.

But recent calls from various corners of the public and private sector have pointed to the too-high incidence of other breaches in trademarks and patents - outside the audiovisual and software realm - most importantly, in the pharmaceuticals industry. Though there are other industry advocate groups, they have not done enough, Rosiński says.

Thus, in direct response, numerous industry decision-makers plan to draw up a roadmap to push the hands of governmental control to better execute and amend law already on the books. They also hope that the plan will help to reclaim the hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs the country has lost to IP infringements.

At the very heart of the IP issue are money and jobs - but also future creativity.

"There has been progress," says Christopher Hill, U.S. Ambassador to Poland. But he notes that it's very necessary to get the point across that intellectual property is important and that IP violations are theft. "You ultimately lead to a decline in creativity," he says.

Tomasz Bochenek, general manager at Microsoft, proffered some interesting facts and figures. Should the country decrease IP theft by 10 percent locally, it would yield some $1.1 billion (zł.4.4 billion) to the economy, industry revenues could boost by $700 million (zł.2.8 billion) in a year and it would create 3,000 jobs. He notes, also, that Stadion Dziesięciolecia, or the "Russian Market" is a "particularly burning problem."

Though there has been a crackdown on illegal goods (see charts), many of which are sold in or around the Russian Market, the problem persists.

Wojciech Dziomdziora, a deputy director at the Department of Law and Legislation in the Ministry of Culture, said that there is an ultimatum in the new IP violation strategy, directed at Damis, the operator of the Russian Market.

"The strategy is simple," he says. "If Damis doesn't stop piracy on the market by the end of this year, it will lose the contract."

He explains that in May and June of this year, the company stamped out most of the counterfeit good sales in the stadium's many leased stalls that surround the soccer pitch. Unfortunately, the progress has not continued. "No positive change has really take place," he says.

As such, early next year there could be a tender for the contract to manage the stadium - a contract that has been the subject of much derision because of its reputed connections with local politicians. "If they wanted to do something with the market, they would have done so years ago," says an individual familiar with the contract. "There's too much money coming from it to the government."

While Damis does not publish revenues, it collects money from some 4,000 organized traders and pays tax to the government and a leasing fee to the state-owned Centralny Ośrodek Sportu. It is estimated that Damis pays roughly zł.11 million in tax and zł.6 million in leasing fees yearly.

Whatever the future status of the stadium, there's much to be tackled by the government - especially in enforcing the already existing laws. There is also work to be done in ensuring that the prosecution of criminals travels swiftly through the country's notoriously slow court system.

The Ministry of Culture has been heading up efforts, along with an intergovernmental committee, to change the Polish IP law.