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Monday 7 June 2010

Patricia Covarrubia

Mexico: digital downloads and copyright

    4 comments:

Last week, the Coalition for Legal Access to Culture (a body that represents artistic and cultural industries such as the Society of Authors and Composers, the Association of Phonogram Producer and the General Society of Writers and many others) presented, along with Ipsos (one of the world’s largest research companies) a report regarding Digital Downloads.The main line was to try to stabilize the copyright on the Internet.

According to the Coalition, the cultural sector in Mexico accounts for 6% of GDP, and its international level is located at number six of the 20 countries that most exported cultural property - the only Latin American country on the list. Roberto Cantoral, chief executive of the Coalition said that "although the works are intangible products, reform is urgently needed to protect our creativity as we can not compete against the illegal and gratuitous.” He explains that there is an increasing interest in its legislation. He mentioned that the problem is likely to worse when the bandwidth grows in the country – at the moment is 2G while European countries have 10G.

During the press conference, it was reported that during 2009 only in Mexico were downloaded illegally a total of 5100 million songs, a figure 15 times the number of records sold that year; 470 million videos, 24 million movies, 16 million TV shows; 26 million books; and over 1878 million protected images.
Among the Internet sites with the highest number of illegal download are: Ares (71%), YouTube (58%) and limewire (14%) among others. The final results is a loss of 13 billion pesos for the industry.

The Coalition proposes to strengthen cultural heritage and advice to fight piracy in favour of online copyright. To achieve this, Roberto Cantoral explains: “ there is the need to force manufacturers of digital music players such as MP3 to pay a ‘right’”. He adds there should be an adjustment to Internet Service Providers – creating strategies that protect copyright. Roberto Cantoral said that in the end, "we seek the intellectual product to be protected equally as any other commercial product that is purchased in a convenience store". I do agree.

Federico de la Garza, director of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), said that in Mexico there is a legal gap with respect to which authority is responsible for preventing this illegal activity. Roberto Cantoral, president of the Coalition, said the amendment to the Industrial Property Act to prosecute ex officio to piracy, is not enough. "We will conduct an awareness campaign directed at the civil society, industry and government to address this issue," he said.

The initiatives have already been sent to the House of Representatives and the coalition hopes that next year the laws come into force.

For more info click here, here and here.

Patricia Covarrubia

Patricia Covarrubia


4 comments

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8 June 2010 at 21:26 delete

I was in that meeting in the Congress, the video that contained the statistics that you are publishing does not have any support, this video was produced by "some authors" coalition, as this information does not have any support. Do you know that most of the Internet users in Mexico are students? How about the persons that do not have access to libraries? if the iniciative is approved then can you imagine what would happen if your son is judged for access to information to do his homework? How many times do you paid for copies at the University? the cornerstone in the Internet's regulation is not just the author's right, as the Author's Law established it is the illegal profit for illegal commerce of author's right.

The five most important points under my consideration of the iniciative: http://www.registrosdemarcas.com/registro-de-marcas/delitos-internet/

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9 June 2010 at 00:28 delete This comment has been removed by the author.
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9 June 2010 at 00:30 delete

Do you mean that Ipsos (the organization that run the survey) is not reliable? As far as I understand Ipsos is used very much for recognised business. Referring to the 'group of artist' I also understand that the said coalition represents more than 30 organisations in Mexico.

I perhaps can see you point if you refer to the fact that the survey can be subjective because the whole population is not taken into account and/or because the coalition perhaps left aside other artists.

You made an example of a son doing a homework, well I am sure that he does not need to download the whole book. I take the downloading on internet the same as physical matter - I would not photocopy a complete book! Or I will not promote to steal a book because it is too expensive to photocopy.
Also you mention than the majority of internet users are students and well in that respect the same survey (if you got to the source) affirms that the youngsters are the one that are the highest infringer - high school and university age - so you are right.

Note the following: just because they are students they are only doing homework but remember that they are also, as they called, 'sharing' files.

In that sense I believe that it is the author right to stop anyone for illegally using/distributing/publishing what he has created. Don't you think?

Following your link I do agree that to give full responsibility to ISP is a thorny matter. However, they need to take some actions. In this vein, in point two you affirm that they will need to check all exchanged info and I do see your worries. But nowadays there is not need to do so. This can be presumed for the quantity of GB that are sent by a private person for example - you can also check in your own computer if you internet connection is used by others; or how much data are you sending and receiving without disclosing the data as such.

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9 June 2010 at 00:38 delete

By the way Lic Rafael, you are running good websites and blogs. I am always seeking for info and I am sure that your sites will make my life easier when looking at Mexico - thanks.

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