While ‘Titanic’ is still packing cinemas at $7 a head in most European cities, Ukrainians have been enjoying private home screenings of the blockbuster hit for months. The tide of cheap illegal copies of the disaster epic and countless other new Hollywood releases swamping Kyiv’s sidewalk stalls and kiosks suggests that the government’s plan to crack down on copyright pirates is, well, sunk. Three months after a Cabinet decree prohibited the sale of pirated video cassettes, compact disks and music tapes, it’s business as usual for the flock of traders who make their living selling the unlicensed merchandise for a fraction of the price charged by legitimate shops. And it’s not as if the deals now go down in back alleys with winks and nods. Anyone strolling down the Khreschatyk on a sunny afternoon can choose from a wide variety of knock-offs smuggled in from Russia or Bulgaria and sold in broad daylight for a mere Hr 6 ($3).
‘Nothing has really changed,’ said Ira, a kiosk owner in Podil who declined to give her last name. ‘We have the new Madonna CD here that isn’t licensed, but we’re still selling it.’
By restricting the sale of videos and CDs to licensed retail shops, the government had hoped to boost its tax revenues while speeding Ukraine’s drive to join the World Trade Organization, which requires members to protect foreign copyrights.
The ban on street sales went into effect in early January, and briefly banished vendors and their stalls from the Khreschatyk. But trading continued as before at Kyiv’s many outdoor markets, and it wasn’t long before pirate sellers returned to their favored spots along the city’s major thoroughfares.
According to Yelena Gorotsuk, head of the legal department of Ukraine’s State Copyright Agency, the crackdown failed because its implementation was entrusted to a hodgepodge of national and local agencies. The government decree named the Cabinet and regional administrations, the State Patent Agency, the State Copyright Agency, the State Tax Administration, and the ministries of Culture and Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, involving everyone and leaving no one in charge.
‘There is no mechanism for implementing the law,’ Gorotsuk said.
When the decree was issued, officials said law enforcement officers around the country had been briefed on combating pirates. Traders, however, say they’ve had only the usual government hassles in recent months.
‘Tax inspectors have continued to bother us like they bother everyone else, but that’s nothing new,’ said Ira. Street vendors seem better prepared to answer questions about copyright laws than the government is to enforce them. Slava, a trader who asked that his last name be withheld, flashed a sheaf of documents that he said proves all of his Hr 6 video tapes are Hr 6 were legal copies, and eagerly pointed out gold stickers supposedly certifying his wares as licensed.
‘We have permissions for all of these things, so we are not breaking the law,’ he said.
But Gorotsuk, whose office is responsible for licensing audio and video material, said no gold stickers are issued as part of the process and accused sellers of forging licensing documents.
‘We’ve tried to do our best to make the law, traders are trying their best to break it,’ she said.
One entrepreneur has apparently even taken the government to court – and won. According to an April 7 story in the Kyiv daily Den, the Supreme Arbitration Court has upheld a claim by businessman Valery Basmanov that the ban on outdoor sales violated his rights to private enterprise under the constitution and other legislation. The court ordered the government to suspend the ban and pay Basmanov Hr 85 in damages, Den reported. It added that pirate traders in one city were buying copies of the ruling for Hr 50 and using it to ward off government tax inspectors. All of which does little to help retailers who had been counting on the ban to spur sales of legal videotapes and CDs.
Oleksandr Timoshenko, sales manager of Simozh, a video company that advertises the sale of legally copied video tapes, said his company is still struggling to compete with pirates.
‘It has been extremely difficult to sell licensed videos,’ he said. ‘The law hasn’t affected us at all. If the law had been observed by everyone, there would be no problem. But the fact is nothing has changed since the law was adopted. It was a nice idea, though.’
While ‘Titanic’ is still packing cinemas at $7 a head in most European cities, Ukrainians have been enjoying private home screenings of the blockbuster hit for months. The tide of cheap illegal copies of the disaster epic and countless other new Hollywood releases swamping Kyiv’s sidewalk stalls and kiosks suggests that the government’s plan to crack down on copyright pirates is, well, sunk. Three months after a Cabinet decree prohibited the sale of pirated video cassettes, compact disks and music tapes, it’s business as usual for the flock of traders who make their living selling the unlicensed merchandise for a fraction of the price charged by legitimate shops. And it’s not as if the deals now go down in back alleys with winks and nods. Anyone strolling down the Khreschatyk on a sunny afternoon can choose from a wide variety of knock-offs smuggled in from Russia or Bulgaria and sold in broad daylight for a mere Hr 6 ($3).
‘Nothing has really changed,’ said Ira, a kiosk owner in Podil who declined to give her last name. ‘We have the new Madonna CD here that isn’t licensed, but we’re still selling it.’
By restricting the sale of videos and CDs to licensed retail shops, the government had hoped to boost its tax revenues while speeding Ukraine’s drive to join the World Trade Organization, which requires members to protect foreign copyrights.
The ban on street sales went into effect in early January, and briefly banished vendors and their stalls from the Khreschatyk. But trading continued as before at Kyiv’s many outdoor markets, and it wasn’t long before pirate sellers returned to their favored spots along the city’s major thoroughfares.
According to Yelena Gorotsuk, head of the legal department of Ukraine’s State Copyright Agency, the crackdown failed because its implementation was entrusted to a hodgepodge of national and local agencies. The government decree named the Cabinet and regional administrations, the State Patent Agency, the State Copyright Agency, the State Tax Administration, and the ministries of Culture and Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, involving everyone and leaving no one in charge.
‘There is no mechanism for implementing the law,’ Gorotsuk said.
When the decree was issued, officials said law enforcement officers around the country had been briefed on combating pirates. Traders, however, say they’ve had only the usual government hassles in recent months.
‘Tax inspectors have continued to bother us like they bother everyone else, but that’s nothing new,’ said Ira. Street vendors seem better prepared to answer questions about copyright laws than the government is to enforce them. Slava, a trader who asked that his last name be withheld, flashed a sheaf of documents that he said proves all of his Hr 6 video tapes are Hr 6 were legal copies, and eagerly pointed out gold stickers supposedly certifying his wares as licensed.
‘We have permissions for all of these things, so we are not breaking the law,’ he said.
But Gorotsuk, whose office is responsible for licensing audio and video material, said no gold stickers are issued as part of the process and accused sellers of forging licensing documents.
‘We’ve tried to do our best to make the law, traders are trying their best to break it,’ she said.
One entrepreneur has apparently even taken the government to court – and won. According to an April 7 story in the Kyiv daily Den, the Supreme Arbitration Court has upheld a claim by businessman Valery Basmanov that the ban on outdoor sales violated his rights to private enterprise under the constitution and other legislation. The court ordered the government to suspend the ban and pay Basmanov Hr 85 in damages, Den reported. It added that pirate traders in one city were buying copies of the ruling for Hr 50 and using it to ward off government tax inspectors. All of which does little to help retailers who had been counting on the ban to spur sales of legal videotapes and CDs.
Oleksandr Timoshenko, sales manager of Simozh, a video company that advertises the sale of legally copied video tapes, said his company is still struggling to compete with pirates.
‘It has been extremely difficult to sell licensed videos,’ he said. ‘The law hasn’t affected us at all. If the law had been observed by everyone, there would be no problem. But the fact is nothing has changed since the law was adopted. It was a nice idea, though.’
