Special Report 301 (2014)

On April 30, 2014, the United States Trade Representation (USTR) released a new “Special Report 301”. Among the main changes is the exclusion of Ukraine, Italy and the Philippines from the list of main violators of intellectual property rights. In 2014, 10 countries are on the Priority Watch List, Russia in particular, and 27 countries on the Watch List. A number of countries, including Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Turkey, are published in the report each year from the date of its first publication in 1989.

Who publishes the report? What is Special Report 301?
The author of the “Special Report 301” is the United States Trade Representation (United States Trade Representative, hereinafter USTR ), a US government agency established in 1962, developing trade legislation, drawing up bilateral and multilateral trade agreements, coordinating US foreign trade policy. It is part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States.
Special Report 301 is an annual report with a list of countries that do not provide adequate and effective legal protection of intellectual property, according to USTR.
For 25 years, the “Special Report 301” has been published annually; the first report was called “Fact Sheet” and contained a list of 25 trading partners - 8 in the Priority Watch List and 17 in the Watch List.
The Priority Watch List is defined by the USTR as “countries with serious deficiencies in the field of intellectual property rights”, “requiring special attention from the USTR”. In turn, the Watch List is defined by the USTR as “countries with serious deficiencies in the field of intellectual property rights, but they have not yet been published in the Priority Watch List,” an analogue of a yellow football card. USTR can move countries from one list to another, add or remove them from the report altogether.

Who was included in the list of the main pirates in the Special Report 301 in 2014 ?

Priority Watch List: Algeria; Argentina; Chile; China; India; Indonesia; Pakistan; Russia; Thailand; Venezuela.
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Watch List: Barbados; Belarus; Bolivia; Brazil; Bulgaria; Canada; Colombia; Costa Rica; Dominican Republic; Ecuador; Egypt; Finland; Greece; Guatemala; Jamaica; Kuwait; Lebanon; Mexico; Paraguay; Peru; Romania; Tajikistan; Trinidad and Tobago; Turkey; Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan; Vietnam.

Online piracy through the eyes of the USTR.
Increasing the availability of broadband internet connections around the world is generating
a lot of advantages, from increasing economic activity and the formation of new business models to freer access to information and its exchange. However, the USTR considers this phenomenon to be an extremely effective means of distributing counterfeit / pirated products, crowding out legal opportunities for rights holders. The latest report of Notorious Markets List 2013 , which was published in February 2014, includes a list of the main web pirates over the past year, which are managed or hosted on the hosting of Canada, China, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine. Of ours there, Russian RuTracker.org and Ukrainian Ex.ua have traditionally been noted.

Online piracy is a matter of serious concern to the USTR. According to the USTR, unauthorized retransmissions of sports events and the ability to read books online via the Internet are still a serious problem for many US trading partners, particularly for China (most likely, China and other partners just do not care, no one is puzzled by this “serious problem” ), and websites that link to violators only exacerbate the problem. By the way, Yandex was given a special bow for it, Google agreed to clean the search results for DMCA complaints and only give what the copyright holders allow, but Yandex refused.

USTR exemplifies SlySoft, an organization headquartered in Antigua that developed and sells a program called “Any DVD HD”. The software allows the user to hack Blu-Ray disc encryption technology that prevents unauthorized playback and / or distribution. After seven years of interaction between the rights holders and the authorities of Antigua against SlySoft, a criminal case was opened, in April 2014, the owner and manager of Slysoft was found guilty of distributing encryption hacking tools and fined $ 30,000. We draw your attention that it is not for piracy or the promotion of piracy, but for the distribution of hacking tools. And the amount of the fine is just ridiculous for the 7-year history of intergovernmental negotiations, the owner of SlySoft most likely just laughed at the copyright holders, wrote a check and continued to work.

Caribbean problem
The United States has repeatedly expressed concern about the issue of intellectual property rights in the region. In 10 countries in the Caribbean, local companies refuse to cooperate and pay damages to right holders, and in some countries the state itself controls these pirated media companies, like MCTV in Barbados. Thus, the government “covers” its own business, nothing new.

Italy and the Philippines
Italy was removed from the list in 2014 in connection with the adoption of December 12, 2013 regulations on copyright protection on the Internet. Legislation now allows you to block content on the principle of notice-and-takedown - the site owner is discharged if he removes the content on demand. By shortening the paragraph translation in Italy, the USTR is rejoicing about this. The Philippines was excluded from the report on the totality of positive achievements, for the continued and successful work in the field of copyright protection.

Ukraine
Ukraine was included in the list of Priority Foreign Country in 2013. This list has been empty for 7 years (!). Priority Foreign Country is defined by the USTR as “the countries with the most egregious situation in the field of copyright, with the largest adverse impact on the relevant American companies and products; countries that do not enter into the negotiation process and / or do not achieve significant progress in the negotiations to ensure adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights. ”

Lyrical digression. Understanding what categories our ex-president thought, we are sure that the paper with the phrase “The US Trade Representation reported that we have big problems in the field of protection of intellectual property rights” did not even hit his desk. Grain, coal, metal - this is understandable, but scat ... capir ... copy ... .... pi-wright is something hellishly unknown and hardly promising a multi-billion dollar income, and you can’t make a copy of the loaf .

The USTR called the main problems in Ukraine: 1) the management of companies responsible for collecting and paying royalties to US copyright holders; 2) the use of pirated software by Ukrainian government agencies; 3) online piracy. The investigation of Ukraine, which ended on February 28, 2014, determined that “the policy and regulations of Ukraine regarding copyright are burdening or completely restrictive for American business, but due to the political situation in Ukraine, no action will be taken by the United States”. From the report on 2014 Ukraine deleted.

Russia
In 2014, Russia remains on the Priority Watch List as a result of continuing serious problems in the field of protection of intellectual property rights. Russia adopted amendments to its Civil Code, which weakened the protection of industrial design rights and created confusion in the mass of exceptions and limitations. USTR is concerned about the fact that the protection of intellectual property rights continued to decline in 2013 in the wake of 2012. The process is opaque and inefficient. Copyright holders are concerned about the production, storage and retail trade of counterfeit products, including fakes of agricultural chemicals, electronics, software, auto parts, consumer goods, machinery and other products.

A separate cause for concern is the production and marketing of counterfeit pharmacological preparations in online pharmacies. USTR notes that 2 convictions for online piracy were issued in Russia last year, both limited to a conditional sentence, one with a fine (looking at the market, 2 accusations cause a smile). USTR notes that Russia remains home to many sites that promote Internet piracy, which harm both the legitimate content market in Russia and producers from third countries. According to the USTR, measures to combat the end user in the field of piracy have declined sharply, including less frequent raids by the relevant authorities, opening of criminal cases, as well as executing court decisions. Most likely, the authors of the “anti-piracy law” and all amendments to it are now simply indignant. They adopted laws here, you know, they tightened the screws so that only Cheburashka was further, and the USTR was little and no ...! It's only the beginning.

From myself I would like to add ... Good copyright or evil, let everyone decide for himself. But everyone needs to remember that limiting the turnover of digital content and trying to control content flows are directly opposed to the main goal of the Internet - the transfer of information.