[asia-apec 69] Piracy

[RVerzola]

FINETUNING THE DEFINITION OF PIRACY
                          by Roberto Verzola

     Piracy used to mean the highjacking of ships on the high seas.
Now, the U.S. uses the word to refer to what everybody -- including
most governments -- in Asia is doing: copying software for use with
their computers.

     Mr. Ron Eckstrom of the U.S. lobby group Business Software
Alliance explains why they are lobbying Asian governments to clamp
down on software copying. "Copying licensed software is a form of
stealing," he says. "If you cannot afford to buy a BMW, you have no
right to go into anybody's garage and steal one."

     In the 18th and 19th centuries, however, the U.S. itself was a
center of piracy of British books and publications. U.S. publishers
justified their piracy by saying that the American public should not
be denied access to British knowledge and literature just because they
couldn't afford British prices. Thus the U.S. publishers pirated
British materials at will.

     When the U.S. couldn't afford BMWs, they went into British
garages to steal some. Now that Mr. Eckstrom has a BMW, he doesn't
want anybody to steal it.

     Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Federico Macaranas, who must
imagine himself to be under the employ of the U.S. foreign affairs
office, hastens to add, "Let's never use poverty as an instrument to
steal." It nicely complements Eckstrom's admonition not to steal a BMW
if you're too poor to afford it.

     If is it a sin for the poor to steal from the rich, it must be a
much bigger sin for the rich to steal from the poor.

     Don't rich countries pirate our best scientists, engineers,
doctors, nurses, and programmers? When global corporations come to
operate in the Philippines, don't they pirate the best people from
local firms? If it is bad for poor countries like us to pirate the
intellectual property of rich countries, isn't it a lot worse for rich
countries like the U.S. to pirate our intellectuals? In fact, we are
benign enough to take only a copy, leaving the original behind; they
are so greedy they take away the originals and leave nothing for us.

     Undersecretary Macaranas, who seems to take seriously his role as
U.S. spokesman, says, "lack of technological and financial resources
should no longer be used to justify piracy."

     His comment reminds us that much of the world's technological and
financial resources are held by rich countries, and poor countries
want affordable access to these resources. It also reminds us that
others had earlier used their lack of resources to justify piracy.

     The U.S., for instance, enjoys a huge lead in satellite and
communications technologies. When the U.S. launched spy satellites
into space, a number of poorer countries protested. One could imagine
them complaining: "Why are you taking aerial photos of our territory?
You are taking national proprietary information; that's piracy!"

     The U.S. response, in effect, said, "We have the sovereign rights
to take photos of every country, including yours. You are even welcome
to buy them, if you can afford them."

     And because they couldn't afford BMW and satellite technologies,
poor countries had no choice but to pay through the nose for Landsat
photos of their own territories.

     The U.S. then went on from military to commercial satellites,
transmitting video programs into other countries. Again, one could
imagine more conservative countries complaining: "Why send us these
programs full of violence, crime, illicit sex and other social ills?
Please stop, they violate our standards of morality."

     The U.S. response, in effect, said, "Haven't you heard of the
free flow of information? It means we have the right to transmit video
programs to you, even if you consider them objectionable."

     In the course of time, some local people actually developed a
taste for these U.S. programs. They taped the U.S. video transmissions
and sold the tapes locally or showed them on local TV.

     Now, it was the U.S.'s turn to complain: "Why are you copying our
licensed materials without authorization? You are pirating our
intellectual property rights!"

     Piracy is also an emerging issue in biotechnology, another field
that is very much a monopoly of advanced countries like the U.S.

     U.S. researchers roam the globe looking for plants, animals, or
microorganisms which show commercial promise. Many of these are
indigenous herbal plants and concoctions, whose pharmacological
properties are now the subject of intense interest by U.S. biotech
companies. Researchers take the samples out -- often without the
consent of the host country -- isolate the active ingredients,
synthesize them in the laboratory, and patent the resulting
formulations. This is known as biopiracy, a widespread practice by
rich countries.

     Yet, when our government licenses local firms to copy
pharmaceutical formulations of global corporations, to reduce the cost
of medicine for our people, the giant drug companies cry "piracy."

     In short, the U.S. has finely tuned the definition of piracy,
allowing it when it is good for rich countries like them, but banning
it when it is good for poor countries like us.

     This is the definition that Mr. Eckstrom and Mr. Undersecretary
Macaranas, two spokesmen for U.S. interests, now want us and the APEC
to embrace.