A proposal for a research and advocacy collaboration between:
- The Social Science Research Council (USA)
- Sarai and the Alternative Law Forum (India)
- The Instituto Overmundo at the FundaçãoGetulio Vargas (Brazil)
- The Association of Progressive Communications and the LINK Center (South Africa)
Submitted to IDRC, July 2007
Summary:
This document bundles three proposals to IDRC from partners in a multi-country comparative study of media piracy, organized by the Social Science Research Council. These proposals would fund the participation of three country teams of researchers in the larger project. The primary institutional partners are:
- Sarai and the Alternative Law Forum in India;
- The Instituto Overmundo at the FundaçãoGetulio Vargas in Brazil;
- And the Association of Progressive Communications, in partnership with the LINK Center in South Africa.
These partners will join the SSRC and a research team in Russia in developing an alternative to the superficial and generally punitive industry accounts of piracy that dominate debates about the application of global IP regimes. The Ford Foundation has provide $400,000 to the SSRC to coordinate this work and conduct its US and Russian components. This proposal seeks a total of approximately US $1,017,000 from IDRC for support of the Brazil, South Africa, and India components. In addition to the research, this sum will also support several international meetings to support the collaboration, and both national and international advocacy components organized around strengthening IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) partnerships on ICT and Access to Knowledge policies.
The primary research output will be a collaborative report, ready in Spring 2009, although some of the research and advocacy activities described in the individual proposals will extend beyond that period. The report (and larger effort) will seek to:
- Provide a basis for a more rationale debate about access to knowledge, which for much of the world currently means access to pirated media goods. This is true especially of enabling tools like software and of the increasingly digital record of cultural heritage.
- Develop an account of piracy that makes fuller account of the costs, benefits, and limitations of IP enforcement, in transitional economies and for poor populations.
- Provide more leverage to Southern actors in North-South trade negotiations over access to knowledge goods—especially software. Currently, these negotiations are shaped by the piracy studies produced by the International Intellectual Property Alliance—an association of US copyright industries.
The core collaboration on the report envisions a primary research phase (1 year), a write-up phase (6 months), and start up and concluding phases of 3 months each. Research planning and design is already underway via the SSRC grant.
Table of Contents:
Project Statement
The IIPA Reports
The Research Teams
Research Design
Program Structure
Budget
The Report Structure
Impact
Communication/Dissemination
The Studies
(1) India and South Asia Regional Project on Piracy
Project Summary:
RESEARCH PROBLEM AND JUSTIFICATION
India: A Background to Contemporary Media Transformations and Urban Experience
Literature Review
Lacunae in Existing Scholarship
Project Objectives
Methodology
Administration
PROJECT SCHEDULE
RESULTS AND DISSEMINATION
Public Dialogues/ Rendition/ Exchange
INSTITUTIONS AND PERSONNEL
CSDS (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies)/ Sarai Programme
Alternative Law Forum (ALF)
Sarai/ALF Background Note
Project staff
Ravi Sundaram
Academic Qualifications
Present Designation
Awards/Fellowships
Research Interests
Publications
Presentations
Conferences Organised
Teaching
Projects and Collaborations
Lawrence Liang
Academic Record
Work Experience
Courses Taught
Dissertation Thesis at Warwick University
Research Study at the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy
Seminars and Events Organized
Publications
Papers Presented at Seminars
Project Schedule
Project Budget
(2) Media “Piracy” and Access to Knowledge: South Africa
Project Summary:
RESEARCH PROBLEM AND JUSTIFICATION
South Africa: Background
National Policy
Enforcement
Private Sector Organisations
Statistics
Literature Review
Lacunae in Existing Scholarship
Project Objectives......
Methodology
Advocacy process
Team Members and Administration
Willie Currie......
Education
Employment
Key expertise required in the above positions
Specific activities
Award
Publications
Natasha Primo
Personal Data
Education
Professional Skills and Expertise
Development issue Interests
Recent Work Experience
Recent Consultancies/Short-term work
NGO Governance and Oversight Experience
Publications
Recent Conferences attended
Libby Lloyd......
PROFILE
EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE
EARLIER CAREER
EDUCATION
Certificates
PAPERS AND WORKSHOPS
BOOKS
COMMITTEES
AWARDS
Project Schedule
Project Budget
(3) Media Piracy and Enforcement in Brazil: Costs and Benefits
I – PROJECT SUMMARY
II - RESEARCH PROBLEM AND JUSTIFICATION
Brazil: Background
The Legal Context
Problems in Knowledge Production
Public and Private Costs of Enforcement
Foreign Policy Demands for Data
III – PROJECT OBJECTIVES
IV – METHODOLOGY
Enforcement Survey and Interviews
Descriptive Account of Media Piracy
Analysis of Data, Methods and Data Sources
Institutional Analysis
Education and Outreach
Supporting Progressive IP Policy
V – DELIVERABLES
VI - ADMINISTRATION
Personnel......
Ronaldo Lemos
Sérgio Branco
Antônio Cabral
Oona Castro
Mauricio Bauermann Guaragna
José Marcelo Zacchi
Paula Martini
VI - RESULTS AND DISSEMINATION
VII – PROJECT SCHEDULE
VIII – PROJECT BUDGET
(4) SSRC Organizational and Research Component
Partner Organizations:
The Social Science Research Council
Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (Russia)
Primary Investigators: SSRC and Russia Teams
Joseph J. Karaganis
Education
Employment
Recent Publications
Leonid Gokhberg
Personal Data
Education and degrees:
Publications: Over 350 titles, including:
Participation in International Projects:
Experience with World Bank projects:
Other activities:
Olga Sezneva
EDUCATION
PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT
PUBLICATIONS
CONFERENCE PAPERS
INVITED LECTURES AND OTHER PRESENTATIONS
FELLOWSHIPS AND RESEARCH GRANTS
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP AND OTHER ACTIVITIES:
Appendix A: Report Structure
Project Statement
‘Piracy’ is a fact of life in places where global media markets meet severe inequalities of purchasing power for books, software, recordings, videos and other knowledge goods. The global IPR and trade regime has been built in part on the criminalization of this simple logic. ‘Piracy’ has been transformed from a development challenge—and even a development strategy—into a permanent negotiating advantage for the U.S. and other rich economies, which issue a continuous series of warnings and threats regarding the protection of western IP.
This construction of piracy often focuses on entertainment products—Hollywood movies, console games, music CDs, and so on—whose (mis)appropriation meets no essential human needs. Such accounts tend to trivialize piracy and sidestep the larger dilemma of ‘access to knowledge’ of which it is a symptom. In most parts of the world, access to knowledge commodities is mediated primarily and in some cases only through pirate markets. These goods include not just Hollywood movies and international pop albums but also key ‘enabling’ media such as business software and textbooks, as well as media that play important roles in cultural identity and cultural heritage (e.g., local cinematic or music history). Piracy is often the sole mode of access to these goods because global media companies have generally rejected differential pricing in developing countries, preferring uniform pricing strategies that protect high-margin western markets.
Developing countries are caught in this dilemma. The influence of global media companies on western trade and IP policy makes it necessary for developing countries to accede to media industry demands. These companies, in turn, have generally shown little interest in servicing wider domestic markets. In practice, developing-country compliance with international trade and IPregimes is overwhelmingly about enforcement rather than investment—about policing domestic populations. This is not solely a North-South dynamic, although the structure of global media ownership makes this an inescapable framework. Similar dynamics play out within domestically-owned media industries, such as the film industry in India, which battles the erosion of its own internal markets. This is a complex and destructive dynamic for developing countries, and the subject of our work.
The IIPA Reports
Despite its centrality to modern trade regimes, international data on piracy comes almost entirely from a single source, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which is composed of U.S. copyright industry associations. Ties between the IIPA and the U.S. Trade Representative are tight, and IIPA country reports are often the primary (and sometimes the only) evidence used in the crucial Special 301 report, published yearly by the USTR. The reports also figure prominently in bilateral and regional trade negotiations, and in negotiations between western firms and developing-country governments—often as a bargaining chip for extracting additional trade or contract concessions.
Reliance on a monopoly data provider with a vested interest in the results has predictable effects on the underlying social science. The IIPA country reports are widely considered to be works of fiction—the products of biased framing, inconsistent and often opaque methodologies, and numerous reporting incentives to inflate piracy figures. As the policy role of the reports has grown in recent years, and as ‘access to knowledge’ becomes a more prominent agenda for public-interest IP activism, the need for alternatives has become clearer.[1] Examination of the IIPA studies has been very limited, with some modest exceptions at the national, sectoral level.[2] No broad-based or comparative studies have been conducted, and media piracy more generally has been subject to very little systematic attention.[3]
This project focuses on address this need. We propose to conduct a comparative series of country studies of media piracy, designed to provide an independent, credible alternative to the IIPA country reports. These studies would have four primary goals:
- Provide a basis for a more rationale debate about access to knowledge, which for much of the world currently means access to pirated media goods. This is most important in the area of enabling tools like software and in relation to the increasingly digital record of cultural life.
- Subject the massive and growing ‘anti-piracy industry’ to its first serious analysis and scrutiny, including an examination of IIPA claims, research methods, and modes of enforcement, as well as the policy applications of IIPA findings.
- Recuperate the complex relationship between piracy, inequality, cultural production and development, in support of more balanced debates about national IP policies.
- Provide better leverage for public and local private actors in negotiations with western multinationals for media and other services (e.g., software contracts).
Our effort will target several IP ‘battleground’ countries and regions. The present IDRC proposal would support three country studies to be conducted in parallel over two years. These will complement and integrate with work sponsored via a Ford Foundation grant to the SSRC to coordinate a fourth study on media piracy in Russia and conduct wider analysis of the international ‘anti-piracy’ industry and the application of piracy data in trade settings—including but not limited to the IIPA.
The Ford grant was awarded in April 2007 and formally began in May. The early phase of this work has been devoted primarily to research planning and coordination of the separate proposals. The studies themselves would take approximately 12-15 months, with a target date for completion of the study of May 2009 with additional research and dissemination components extending beyond that period each of the three grants. The South Africa and Brazil proposals anticipate two-year projects. The India team has outlined an expanded regional study in a third year of funding.
Our proposed study focuses on Russia, Brazil, India, South Africa, and—running throughout—the United States as the chief producer and ‘user’ of piracy data. This geography is driven by a mix of practical, political, and conceptual concerns. In the first instance, the country studies build on (and follow the geographical distribution of) the small international cohort of researchers and researcher/advocates who work on these issues. The project will rely heavily on this network to conduct and effectively disseminate the work. This geographical diversity will also permit a mapping of differences in the political dynamics of piracy by country and region, based on such factors as varying levels of exposure to international enforcement pressure and the role that domestic culture and knowledge industries play in internal debates around enforcement. Recent U.S.-Russia and U.S.-Brazil IP enforcement agreements are likely provide rich opportunities for such analysis.
Conceptually, the studies will take up two broad axes of concern:
- Costs and Benefits in the Pirate Economy. Because the piracy debate is always framed in terms of losses to international copyright holders, the actual costs and benefits of piracy to the state, to different domestic constituencies, and to multinationals are rarely discussed or analyzed. Positive externalities to piracy are one such complicating factor—especially in the areas of software and educational materials. Pirated business software, where the IIPA often claims infringement rates of 75%-85%, provides core infrastructure for domestic businesses that enables other kinds of value-added activity. It also creates a valuable lock-in effect for multinational software providers, who need not worry about the emergence of low-cost competitors in markets that they will not service.[4] Pirated textbooks extend the reach of educational services beyond what the licit market would provide. The pirate ‘sector’ is not just a drain on legitimate economic activity, but also a large employer and source of revenue in its own right, with its own processes of political capture and economic investment.
By the same token, the costs of anti-piracy efforts are rarely discussed and—to the best of our knowledge—never measured. As major consumers and producers of media goods—licit and illicit—Russia, India, and Brazil have been high priority targets of IP enforcement pressure, especially via the U.S. Trade Representative’s office. Because all parties are aware that strong compliance is impractical in these countries, trade pressures tend to produce complicated ‘rituals’ of enforcement as targeted countries seek low-cost solutions to minimizing their exposure to sanctions. Our fuller account of piracy will weigh these different costs and benefits. Each of the country studied will have its distinctive variation on these dynamics:
- Russia: With nuclear proliferation and terrorism, piracy has been the main subject of recent high-level US/Russia talks.[5] A November 2006 IP enforcement agreement is widely viewed as paving the way to Russian WTO accession. Russia is not a participant in the ‘Friends of Development’ at WIPO, but it has a history of policy independence in areas where it sees a clear self-interest. According to the IIPA, Russia is one of the worst international violators of copyright, with losses of $1.75 billion (rates of piracy for music: 67%; business software: 85%; movies: 81%).
- Brazil: Like Russia, the Brazilian government has recently concluded an ‘agreement’ with the U.S. to crack down on copyright piracy in order to forestall Section 301 action.[6] Brazil is an important actor a range of progressive international IP initiatives, from the WIPO Development Agenda, to state-supported Free Software programs, to the creative use of compulsory licensing for health technologies. The threat of U.S. trade sanctions is the main constraint on this independence. In 2005, the IIPA reported $858 million in losses in Brazil. As a percentage of market share: music: 52%; business software: 65%; movies: 30%.
- India remains on the Special 301 Priority Watch due to IIPA dissatisfaction with Indian enforcement efforts. Like Brazil, India has exercised considerable independence in IP policy while also navigating the growing constraints of multilateral trade contexts. The lack of a judicial infrastructure for enforcement is the primary IIPA concern. The IIPA reports $443 million in losses in 2005. As percentage of total media markets, the IIPA cites piracy rates for: music: 55%; business software: 74%; movies: 60%; books: 40%)
- South Africa. South Africa is also a regular member of the Section 301 watch list, and the third partner in the emerging IBSA alliance—India, Brazil, and South Africa—whose similar developmental needs and geopolitical positions have become a basis for organizing on ICT and access to knowledge policies. Like those countries, South Africa is a major producer as well as consumer of media goods for its region, making piracy a complex internal development challenge as well as a subject of external trade relations. For reasons this study will hope to illuminate, industry data on South Africa is minimal.
- Fostering Domestic Knowledge and Culture Industries: The grounding of copyright in national—not international—law reflects its origins as an incentive for local investment in knowledge goods and services. The dominance of enforcement discourse in official circles, however, makes it hard to have honest conversations about the development path and viability of domestic culture industries—whether music, film, software, or publishing. In most countries, domestic cultural industries service only narrow economic elites, both at the level of product pricing and in the distribution of commercial infrastructure, such as stores and theaters.[7] The notion of competition between licit and illicit goods in such situations is not apt, as there is often no ‘licit’ effort to market to poor audiences. By the same token, the dominance of global media companies means that there is often little or no capacity for producing and disseminating local forms of cultural expression.
This market failure often reflects pricing strategies tied to global media markets, in which low-margin, hard-to-service markets are written off in order to avoid competing with more profitable markets. A serious approach to cultural policy in such settings must take this market failure into account, and understand the distinctive conditions of development of local culture industries. In addition to pricing dynamics, two observations are central: