News Releases
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US Copyright Industries Identify Trading Partners With Serious Intellectual Property Rights Deficiencies
“Special 301 Report” Filed with USTR – Notes Continuing Disappointment with Canada, Mexico
February 18, 2010 – WASHINGTON, DC – Online piracy, fueled by the availability of illicit mod chips and game copiers, remains the dominant piracy-related concern for the video game industry, according to a report filed today with the United States Trade Representative (USTR). The “Special 301 Report” – filed officially by the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), of which the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is a member – provides a comprehensive review of the U.S. copyright-based industries’ piracy and market access problems across 39 foreign countries.
“Intellectual property theft stunts our industry’s innovative momentum and job growth,” said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA, which represents U.S. computer and video game publishers. “Innovators, artists and consumers are all hurt when foreign markets are closed off because their governments fall short in enacting and enforcing meaningful trade protection measures that discourage large-scale piracy.”
This year, IIPA recommends that 35 of the countries identified be named to an appropriate USTR Watch List. Under the “Special 301” trade law, the USTR can impose trade sanctions on certain countries following an investigation and consultation period. In the Report:
- ESA joined with other IIPA members in recommending that Canada be retained, and Mexico be placed, on the Priority Watch List based in large part on their inadequate response to domestic sources of piracy. A mixture of legislative deficiencies and a lack of consistent, deterrent enforcement have made Canada and Mexico piracy havens.
- ESA also joined other IIPA members in recommending close scrutiny of developments in Spain – urging that the country be retained on the Watch List and that the U.S. government perform an “out-of-cycle-review” to examine how the Spanish government has responded to the challenge posed by Internet piracy. Spain is hampered by one of the world’s highest online piracy rates. Enforcement in the online environment is made more difficult as a consequence of Spain’s Attorney General issuing a circular that decriminalizes infringements that occur via peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.
- ESA also joined in calling for Brazil to be kept on USTR’s Watch List, noting steady increases in online game piracy, lack of an effective legal or practical framework for addressing it, and unenforceable anti-circumvention laws that hinder the effectiveness of industry anti-piracy technologies.
Other notable aspects of the report were the results of studies performed by the ESA that revealed alarmingly high volumes of illegal game downloads across the leading P2P platforms – BitTorrent, eDonkey, Gnutella, and Ares. Results are summarized as follows:
- Overall Volume. The entertainment software industry undertook a study to estimate the number of copies made of roughly 200 member-published game titles through popular peer-to-peer networks during December, 2009. The estimated number of successful game downloads made from these titles during this one month period was 9.78 million – with year-round impact obviously being many times greater.
- These figures under-represent the true magnitude of online game piracy. They address only downloads of a small selection of ESA member titles. And while they account for illegal downloads that occur over select P2P platforms, they do not account for downloads that occur from “cyberlockers” or “one-click” hosting sites, which continue to account for high volumes of infringing downloads.
- Leading Countries. Countries with the heaviest number of unauthorized game downloads by volume were Italy (20.3%); Spain (12.5%); France (7.5%); Brazil (6%) and China (5.7%). The heaviest downloading countries per capita were Italy, Spain, Croatia, Portugal and Israel.
ESA’s reporting demonstrates a strong correlation between countries that lack sufficient protections for technological protection measures (TPMs) and countries where online piracy levels for entertainment software are high. Countries with high levels of online piracy and deficient TPM provisions, or none at all, include: Canada, Israel, India, New Zealand, Hungary, Greece, Romania, Poland, Mexico and Brazil. Effective enforcement against circumvention devices trafficking would have a significant impact in reducing rampant online piracy because infringing video game software downloads would not be playable absent the availability of circumvention devices.
The IIPA's report will soon be available at www.iipa.com and is being submitted, with Special 301 filings and documents from other parties, via www.regulations.gov.
The Entertainment Software Association is the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies publishing interactive games for video game consoles, handheld devices, personal computers, and the Internet. The ESA offers services to interactive entertainment software publishers including a global anti-piracy program, owning the E3 Expo, business and consumer research, federal and state government relations and First Amendment and intellectual property protection efforts. For more information, please visit www.theESA.com.
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