The trade in fakes from and through SE Asia

The publication of the OECD/EUIPO updated report Trends in Trade in Counterfeit and Pirated Goods provides more data and corroboration on the role of SE Asia in the global fakes trade.

 

Of course China dominates as the global source, including transited goods through Hong Kong. But the report identifies other SE Asian countries too. Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam are all small but important producers in many goods sectors. Singapore features as a source as a result of transhipment of fakes through its port.  The global fakes trade is valued at half a billion Euros and growing. Footwear and clothing are the largest volumes of fake goods seized, but the usual range of products from consumer and household to pharma remain common, as well as IP-infringing packaging and labels.

 

Places with weak governance attract counterfeiting. This includes bot  countries with large grey economies, and specifically Free Trade Zones. The boom in internet orders and small parcel deliveries by post or courier services is now dominating seizures. For customs and IP owners this means more work for less volumes.  Weak port systems (lack of shipment information transparency, no advance clearance systems etc) encourages the fakes trade.

 

The authors also note a change to the rights owners affected with an increasing spread to companies from all countries. In SE Asia they identify a number of Singapore IP owners as facing fake goods problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New kids on the piracy block

For years movie anti piracy activity has been led by the Motion Picture Association, which helps its member film studios (principally the major Hollywood studios) address film piracy and market access. In Asia over decades they have work to address VCD, DVD, broadcast, camcording and online piracy. 

Now a new organization has appeared. The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) is a global anti-piracy coalition which represents many of the new content giants such as Amazon, Neflix, HBO, as well as the digital arms of many studios. 

In Thailand a new government anti-piracy agency opened in December. The Center of Operational Policing for Thailand Against Intellectual Property Violations and Crimes on the Internet Suppression, otherwise known as COPTICS, is a collaboration between The Royal Thai Police (RTP) and the Office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission  (NBTC).  It aims to block piracy sites faster than in the past. Its first complaint was filed by Netflix. 

The digital world shifts every few years and this new structure represents the new content order and its needs to address piracy. Asia can expect to play a leading part in this as digital entertainment grows exponentially across the region. 

Vietnam company creates unique new copyright system

The Blockchain has long been talked up as a source of useful risk reduction in transactions. Bitcoin and other systems rely on its distributed database structure to ensure facts can be verified and so risks reduced. An example is escrow systems for online ordering so that payment is triggered upon delivery.   

Copyright is an area where proof of subsistence and ownership would be very suitable for a Blockchain based verification system.

 

Now a Vietnam based software developer Copyrobo has developed a web- and app-based system for authors to create timestamped evidence of their work quickly and accurately. Using the Blockchain and timestamps it helps creators timestamp and manage copyrights.

 

Their angle appears to be that it can be used quickly and efficiently for online enforcement by allowing integration with social media.

 

Korean IP Style in SE Asia

IP Komodo has reported the growth in IP interest from the developed world and China in South East Asia. Now comes a new player. South Korea is paying attention to the ASEAN region as its highly successful domestic IP is exported overseas.
 

South Korea's most well-known IP includes entertainment copyrights in K-POP music and the 2012 dance hit Gangnam Style as well as film, games and soap opera TV series. They are part of a Korean wave that is making the Korean government pay attention to the massive revenues their creative content industries can generate.

So the Republic of Korea's Korea Copyright Commission (KCC) has opened two satellite offices in the Philippines and in Thailand to help protect its copyrights. The KCC's goals there are to promote lawful consumption of copyrighted Korean works, educate consumer and artists, as well as collecting royalties. The latest news is that last week the KCC signed an agreement with Vietnam increase collaboration in copyright protection.

 

IP Komodo observes that there is a rapidly increasing number of foreign governemntal IP officers based in ASEAN now, reflecting the global interest in Asia's next IP frontier. The Republic of Korea brings yet another dimension.

 

More ASEAN exporters targeted for software piracy

Hot on the heels of the prosecution of a Thai company's US operations, for software piracy - details here - comes news that 6 more Asian companies are under investigation in one of the several states (presumably Massachusetts, Washington DC, or Louisiana) that enforce the unfair competition laws. The Thai IP department, who has presumably been in discussions with the US, revealed recently that companies from China, Vietnam, Thailand and Hong Kong are also under investigation. 

The IP department announced assistance to Thai firms to avoid running afoul of the laws, through a seminar in cooperation with the Open Computing Alliance called "How to Export to the US by Not Breaching the UCA" to be held next week on 28 November in Bangkok.

SOPA and PIPA reaction in Asia

The debate about the US SOPA and PIPA legislation caused many reactions in the South East Asia media over its impact.


SOPA and PIPA are Congessional and Senate bills targeting especially entertainment content piracy such as P2P systems focussed on pirated music like Piratebay.  The bills empower IP holders to attack the most difficult to reach pirate websites based on a "good faith belief" of infringement and then seek to take them down, block them from receiving payments, or remove them from search engine results. Of particular concern are "notorious foreign infringers".

The world reacted against them through some 7000 Wikipedia and other website blackouts claiming it violates free speech and web freedom.

Concerns expressed in the South East Asia media are that Asian websites may be in the sights of the US legislation. A common theme was the uboquitous and therefore innoucous nature of piracy in South East Asia. One particularly Filipino concern is that the 'copycat tendency in Philippine legislation' might lead its Congress to replicate the legislation.  

IP Komodo feels the impasse in the content providers v ISPs war is not helping anyone. Content providers must provide better business models to supply content in the easier ways that people now want content (but obviously not for free). And service providers must accept some level of responsibility for helping police their networks.  IP Komodo really does wonder if SOPA and PIPA would lead to curbing of freedom of speech? Surely attacking Piratebay and the like is not really going to harm the internet. A trial of the legislation with clear checks and balances against IP holder overreaching would be an obvious way to see if it works or not.

Music royalty collection - the sound of the Blues

Thanh Nien (Youth) Newspaper in Vietnam reports in the government’s attempts to collect copyright royalties for musical performances at bars, clubs and restaurants.

The Vietnam Centre for Protection of Music Copyright (VCPMC) collected USD1.5 million in 2010 a massive 40% jump on 2009.  But still VCPMC complains of having a long and lonely road to travel citing lack of awareness, refusals to pay and allegations of unfairness in the calculation methods. Currently even  in and around Saigon, the country's biggest city, some 85 notices have recently been ignored, including by some well known bars, restaurants, shopping plazas and hotels. The Sofitel is even among them!

In the Philippines FILSCAP (Filipino Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, see http://www.filscap.com.ph/) are pretty successful at royalty collection. They have even sued television networks in the past for allegedly unauthorized use of their members’ works.

But elsewhere in South East Asia copyright royalty collection is problematic. There are several collecting societies in Indonesia . The oldest and biggest is Karya Cipta Indonesia (KCI). KCI developed out of the Indonesian Recording Music Arrangers and Composers Association (PAPPRI), which set up a collecting society in 1987. KCI asserts rights for public performances and broadcasts, mechanical reproduction by record companies, synchronization rights and printing of musical works. But there are competing collecting societies in Indonesia including WAMI which represents musical publishers and ASIRI, the local recording industry association. The status of collecting societies is actually unclear under the Indonesian Copyright Law, so there have been disputes.  ASIRI represents the recording industry and so claims certain copyright royalties are its, not KCI's to collect, given KCI represents songwriters. This erupted into a public dispute 5 years ago. But until the government amends the copyright law, uncertainty will reign.

In Thailand there is no central body responsible for collection of copyright royalties. A draft law on organization on copyright royalties collection has been drafted but not implemented. So a large number of private companies or organizations collect the royalties for their own catalogues, at last count there were 28 different ones!