Nationalist MP Charlo' Bonnici said in Parliament yesterday that the ratio of legal DVDs and CDs to pirated ones sold in Malta was an astonishing 1:3,000.
He was speaking during the debate on the Bill which brings the Copyright Act into line with international treaties.
Mr Bonnici said it was apparent that the public was not appreciating the fact that they were purchasing stolen goods, and that police surveillance was lacking. Either there were insufficient resources for this surveillance or there were loopholes in the relevant legislation.
To prove his point, Mr Bonnici put a number of pirated DVDs on the Table of the House, purchased yesterday from the Valletta market, which have not yet been released in the US or Europe. It was time, he said, to take the fight against piracy more seriously.
Earlier Edwin Vassallo (PN) suggested the setting up of a local Performing Rights Society to safeguard the rights of local artistes. Mr Vassallo quoted newspaper reports that the Performing Rights Society (UK) had collected more than €0.5 million in performing rights from Malta last year. Labour MP Owen Bonnici spoke of the creative sector, saying this included, among others, the arts, architecture, interactive software, performing arts, publishing, crafts, the media and advertising. The creative sector in the UK accounted for 7.3 per cent of the British economy.
The Maltese were very talented and could turn the creative sector into an industry. The budget allocated to the National Philharmonic Orchestra was insufficient.
Winding up, Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi said that collecting societies had an obligation to see that artistes were paid for putting the end product of their creativity on the market. Artistes should use their rights and request the Copyright Board for remedies and safeguards.
The public also had the right to request the Copyright Board to provide information. This board had the right to warn and even strike off a collecting society from the register. The government was not contrary to the setting up of more than one collecting society.
Every year tens of persons were fined by the courts for breaking the Copyright Law. Dr Azzopardi said that the Ministry of Finance was drafting amendments to increase the minimum established fines.