Sales of pirate goods down, but methods changing

The majority of vendors of pirate goods in Malta were selling their goods "under the counter" in an attempt to thwart the police, the Association Against Copyright Theft said.

The Motion Picture Association has in the meantime urged the local authorities to impose hefty fines on offenders if they want to have a serious deterrent against piracy.

AACT chairman Joe Borg said that a new form of selling pirate goods was quickly unfolding, one in which shop or stall owners did not display pirated DVDs or CDs on shelves, but instead made copies available upon request.

The practice had become relatively widespread, he said, and a number of shop or stall owners had even published brochures or catalogues detailing all the available film or music titles.

Certain stalls or shops even had the luxury of a back-room to which clients were sometimes directed for the most popular titles.

On a positive note, Mr Borg estimates that thanks to a police crackdown, piracy now amounts to about 50 per cent of all CD, VHS or DVD sales, down from about 70 per cent. Piracy of Playstation games, however, remains remarkably high.

"Malta's reputation for blatantly selling pirated items in the open is quickly being buried into oblivion, but this does not mean the problem has been solved," Mr Borg warned.

He said it was high time the courts started dishing out hefty fines. It was ludicrous, he said, that someone found guilty of producing 60,000 pirate discs was fined just Lm500.

MPA International Security Director John Bohnet, who was in Malta to assist the police in identifying pirated material, agreed: "Courts here need to introduce really heavy fines. A simple 'slap on the wrist, don't do it again' penalty does not work."

Malta, he said, should emulate the UK, where someone found guilty of producing and selling pirated material can face up to 10 years' imprisonment.

"Fines like the ones in Malta seem to be the equivalent of a licence fee - which makes it worthwhile for pirates to operate."

Still, Mr Bohnet said, the MPA was clearly satisfied with the increased police enforcement and singled out in particular Assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar.

Mr Bohnet has been involved with MPA since 1986 and he is now responsible for trying to prevent piracy in a number of countries, including Russia, Romania and Malta.

Action against piracy was more effective today than it was in the '80s, he explained, as film warehouses had become secure, making it practically impossible for any films to make it onto the pirate market before they are officially released.

But as designers made the industry user friendly, they were also making it pirate friendly. For example, DVD writers were easily available at a relatively cheap price, while the quality of DVDs was far superior to VHS, he said.

Global sales of pirated music compact discs rose almost 50 per cent to an all-time high of 950 million units in 2001, according to a recently published report.

The MPA estimates that the US film industry loses in excess of $3 billion annually in potential worldwide revenue due to piracy.

Most of the pirated films arriving in Malta nowadays originated from Malaysia, which had a similar release date to the US, Mr Bohnet said.

He displayed a number of DVDs to prove that piracy in Malta was still rampant. Titles like The Road to Perdition and Signs, films which have not even made it to the local cinemas, were on sale.

The films were purchased from an outlet in Bugibba for just Lm5 each.

Mr Bohnet said there had been several reports from tourists who bought CDs in Malta only to find out on their return home that the actual disc was missing.

He said that Cyprus also had a massive piracy problem. However, as opposed to the Maltese, the Cypriot public did not assist the pirates and held back from purchasing pirated material.

Mr Bonhet said that one had to bear in mind that just four out of 10 films produced were profitable and the industry was not the money raker many people perceived it to be.

"We have a mass of evidence that piracy is ultimately feeding crime - be it narcotics, money laundering or even terrorism and the sort. In the meantime it stunts investment, growth and jobs."

Mr Borg believes that Malta's adherence to the EU's acquis communautaire has forced government to step up enforcement against piracy. The AACT was in fact involved in some of the negotiations dealing with the competition chapter.

The AACT, which comprises organisations such as KRS film distributors, MPA and Forestals, this week also held a meeting with US Ambassador Anthony Gioia in connection with the piracy issue.