Pressure groups representing the world's music industry urged Ukraine on Friday to stop the large-scale production and export of pirate CDs, saying it costs companies hundreds of millions of dollars a year
f dollars a year.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which represents 1,400 of the world's record producers, says Ukraine is Europe's biggest producer of pirate CDs (compact disc).
Jason Berman, IFPI chief executive officer, told reporters during a visit to Kyiv that pirate CD plants had become a whole underground industry, and called on Ukraine to protect intellectual property rights.
'To deal with this problem effectively the (pirate) plants should be closed and then there should be a process to license these plants to operate legitimately,' he said.
Ukraine is the latest haven for eastern Europe's intellectual property pirates, who have been the subject of local crackdowns in countries like Bulgaria, Poland and Russia.
The Ukrainian government has pledged to tackle CD piracy but has warned the process could take years because the business is closely linked to the country's flourishing black economy.
Neil Turfewitz, executive vice-president of the Recording Industry Association of America, said illegal CDs produced in Ukraine cost the recording industry $200 million a year. The IFPI puts the figure at about $120 million.
Berman said there were five pirate plants in Ukraine able to produce some 70 million discs a year, compared with a legal output capacity of just one million discs.
RECORDS FOR A COUPLE OF DOLLARS
Illegally produced CDs of famous performers can be bought at kiosks in metro stations and underground pedestrian passages for as little as two to three dollars.
Berman said a failure to tackle the piracy problem effectively could jeopardise Kyiv's bid to join the World Trade Organisation.
The IFPI last year asked the European Union to take the matter up with Ukraine, and Berman said the issue would be on U.S. President Bill Clinton's agenda when he visited Kyiv in early June.
The United States has stepped up pressure on Kyiv, which this year remained on the U.S. Trade Representative's priority list of problem countries because of infringements of intellectual property rights.
U.S. embassy officials have said that continued piracy in Ukraine might even lead to cuts in preferential trade benefits.
Ukraine has signed most major international agreements on intellectual property rights, but experts say its laws are not effective in protecting such rights.
