U.S. Joins Industry in Piracy War

Found on The Washington Post on Thursday, 15 June 2006
Browse Politics

The U.S. government has joined forces with the entertainment industry to stop the freewheeling global bazaar in pirated movies and music, pressuring foreign governments to crack down or risk incurring trade barriers.

Last month, Swedish authorities briefly shut down an illegal file-sharing Web site after receiving a briefing on the site's activities from U.S. officials in April in Washington. The raid incited political and popular backlash in the Scandinavian nation.

In Russia, the government's inability, or reluctance, to shut down another unauthorized file-sharing site may prevent that nation's entrance into the World Trade Organization, as effective action against intellectual property theft tops the U.S. government's list of requirements for Russian WTO membership.

Claes Hammar, Swedish minister for trade and economic affairs, said U.S. authorities noted that copyrighted Swedish material, as well as U.S. movies and music, was being stolen on the Pirate Bay.

A Web site called Allofmp3.com is selling millions of songs without authorization from copyright holders. The site looks as professional and legal as Apple Computer Inc.'s popular iTunes online music store. It claims to be licensed by a Russian agency to sell music, but U.S. trade groups aren't satisfied.

There are just a few tiny problems with all this. First, the PirateBay is perfectly legal under swedish law; it's only a search engine and does not host any copyrighted material. With the same argument, you could raid Google since it also allows you to search for torrent files. Next is Allofmp3: they pointed out that their business is legal too because they pay royalties to the russian authorities. The real problem of the entertainment industry is the fact that this uncontrollable market would force them to adjust their prices and rethink their business model.