Newswise — The United States loses billions of dollars annually to Intellectual Property piracy, and the U.S. Department of Justice is launching a new international initiative with the help of a California law school to combat rampant IP piracy that is thriving in Latin America.
DOJ officials are working closely with Proyecto ACCESO, a rule-of-law training organization headquartered at California Western School of Law in San Diego. The team will travel to South America March 15 to produce an anti-IP piracy training DVD to empower lawmakers and law-enforcement professionals in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and other Latin American countries. Part of the plan is to also get members of the music and entertainment industry in Latin America involved to help protect the works of local visual and musical artists.
"This is about more than protecting the pocketbooks of Bill Gates and Madonna," says Jamie Cooper, team leader of the project and a professor of international and comparative law at California Western School of Law. "Pirated pharmaceuticals and medical devices lack safety standards and quality assurance protocols, counterfeit engine parts and other mechanical devices can fail, posing a danger to users and the general public," he says. "And the ubiquity of pirated music, movies and other artistic works robs artists of the incentive to contribute to their country's cultural heritage."
Professor Cooper and his colleagues at the law school's Proyecto ACCESO center are working directly with officials from the DOJ and with Latin American government and law enforcement agents to develop and produce a new "video call to action" about the dangers of Intellectual Property piracy. "The audience is law enforcement officials, judges, congress members around Latin America," says Cooper, who explains that the Spanish-language DVD (with optional Portuguese subtitles) will feature interviews with law enforcement officials, industry representatives, artists, government spokespeople, jurists and other experts discussing the local impacts of IP theft.
Interviews and performances by Argentina's Charly Alberti (of Soda Stereo), Brazil's Gilberto Gil, Bolivia's Oscar Garcia, and Paraguay's Berta Rojas are planned for inclusion in the DVD, scheduled for release in May of 2009.
"The United States economy is based on IP rights, as is California's--biotech, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, music, telecom, and so on," says Cooper. "The entire globalization process was meant to have the U.S. be the knowledge-based economy--while China, and other places becomes the world's workshop as manufacturing jobs move offshore."
Cooper also notes that the knowledge economy relies on IP rights to make money, and the U.S., he points out, is getting "shafted" by the current arrangement where pirated goods are flowing into the Western Hemisphere from China and elsewhere via the holes in Latin America that have yet to be plugged or even addressed effectively as of yet. "All the free trade agreements which the U.S. has signed," Cooper points out, "including NAFTA, WTO, CAFTA, U.S.-Chile, U.S.-Peru and those pending with South Korea and Colombia feature a chapter on IP rights."
"It is also not unimportant to note that IP piracy also funds terrorism," Cooper says, "and there have been many solid links made between IP piracy in Latin America and terrorist organizations."
Proyecto ACCESO works with California Western School of Law faculty and government officials to train judicial and law enforcement officials throughout Latin America in new legal skills. More information on Professor Cooper (who has broadcast-quality audio and video available) and his work can be found at http://www.cwsl.edu/cooper
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