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The OECD has released preliminary findings on international trade in counterfeit and pirated goods, estimating that the amount was up to $200 billion in 2005. The total does not include counterfeit and pirated goods that 1) were produced and consumed locally, 2) were distributed over the Internet (hence, illicit P2P networks were left out of calculation). The OECD research states that if these latter two items were in their methodology, "the total magnitude of counterfeiting and piracy worldwide could well be several hundred billion dollars more."
Among key insights by the OECD: Counterfeiting-piracy are illicit businesses where criminal networks thrive.
More effective enforcement is critical ...as is the need to build public support to combat the counterfeiting and piracy.
[International trade in counterfeit/pirated goods] is larger than the national GDPs of about 150 economies. The OECD also presents the effects of counterfeiting/piracy, including negative impact on innovation and the ability for nations to attract foreign direct investment.
Innovation has long been recognised as a main driver of economic growth, through the development and exploitation of ideas for new products and processes. Innovators protect these ideas through patents, copyrights... Without adequate protection of IPRs, the incentive to develop new ideas and products would be reduced... weakening the innovation process.
The situation with respect to IPRs is one of many factors considered by firms who are investing abroad... The relationship was tested in an econometric analysis carried out by the OECD. It found that FDI from Germany, Japan and the US was relatively higher in economies with lower rates of counterfeiting and piracy. The OECD does a good job of showing how criminal activity does not benefit, or even provide for Free Culture.
On the other hand, perhaps Free Culture proponents, who espouse the virtues of perfectly free markets and weak copyright policies, should move to a non-TRIPS signatory country, try to start up a business, and write-back about their freedom from the DMCA. Within a week, they'd be calling IPcentral to save them...
posted by Noel Le @ 8:02 PM | Enforcement & Remedies, Free Culture Movement, International
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