DVD pirates running wild in SA

2003-04-15 10:44

Johannesburg - South Africa should be placed on the Priority Watch List, due to the increase in audiovisual piracy levels, the International Intellectual Property Alliance's (IIPA) 2003 special 301 report suggests.

"Perhaps no country in the world has had a greater increase in audiovisual piracy levels in the last year than South Africa," the report said.

The IIPA report added that imports of pirated copies of motion picture DVDs, often of movies which have not even been released anywhere in the world, flood the South African market on a continual basis.

"Devotion of adequate resources to fight piracy remains lacking.

"In addition, the motion picture industry has found that corruption exists within South African Customs, and this needs to be addressed immediately," said the report.

Last year, the South African Federation Against Copyright Theft (Safact) seized 81 000 counterfeit DVDs, said MD Fred Potgieter.

He added that he was concerned about the findings of the IIPA report.

'An avalanche of counterfeiting'

"We have increased our staff complement and have made headway in bringing pirates to book.

"But, resources are limited and we are facing an avalanche of counterfeiting coming into this country.

"While the report states that the courts continue to give low priority to copyright infringement cases, we have seen an increase in commitment and actions during the past few months.

"Indeed, there have been several convictions since late last year - and this is encouraging."

The report also stated that South Africa became one of the world's largest breeding grounds for DVD retail piracy in 2002.

The piracy level for optical disks grew to take more than 35%-40% of the market. In the past, audio-visual piracy had accounted for only 10%-15%.

In IIPA's 2002 special 301 submission, the organisation estimated that total losses to the US copyright-based industries in South Africa were $124.6m (about R977m).

While Potgieter admitted the figures are alarming, he said Safact had identified several highly organised distribution rings which were responsible for spreading pirated product in South Africa.

"There are a number of kingpins who control much of the black market, but it is very hard to prove this from a legal perspective as they work through networks of people," he said.

- I-Net Bridge (Business)