“We’re Not Pirates, But We’ve Been Fined $75 Million”

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) annual review of global intellectual property rights (IPR) violations, which cited Ukraine as a “priority foreign country” for its continued failure to protect copyrights, “is biased and inaccurate.” This is the statement issued by Vasyl Baziv, deputy chairman and head of the Presidential Administration’s analytical department, who commented on the document, according to which the US government intends to maintain 75 million dollars’ worth of trade sanctions against Ukraine, imposed in 2002. “Ukrainian law generally complies with international standards on the protection of intellectual property rights, including the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS),” Mr. Baziv said. In March 2002 Ukraine adopted a law on governmental regulation of enterprises that produce, export, and import laser DVDs. Today, any physical or juridical person in Ukraine who is the subject of intellectual property rights has every opportunity to have his or her rights protected by an administrative body or a court of law. We must therefore point out that the USTR’s statement and conclusions have not been corroborated by any figures or examples,” Mr. Baziv said.

Meanwhile, the US report stresses that Ukraine’s “persistent failure” to act effectively against the pirating of optical media could jeopardize Ukraine’s efforts to join the World Trade Organization. The document notes, in particular, that Ukraine has adopted certain measures to solve the problem of counterfeit discs, but the situation on the border remains unsatisfactory, while small fines for the illegal production and export of CDs have proved to be an ineffective deterrent. Ukraine is the main destination of laser discs illegally produced in Russia and other countries, the report says. This results in a high level of piracy and inflicts losses on the US industry. Counterfeiting trademarks also remains a serious problem, and US firms are still worried about the lack of cooperation between the two countries’ law-enforcement agencies in tackling the problem of counterfeiting, the document notes.

The government of Ukraine drew up relevant amendments to the existing law on CD licensing, which parliament failed to pass. As a result, the Ukrainian law has no provisions for preventing the illegal production and proliferation of optical media.