India is “seriously flawed” with copyright and IP issues, says US.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: The US named India has one of four countries on its “International Piracy Watch List,” the latest in a long line of complaints and regulations the US had lodged against India over the least year that has soured ties between the two nations.
India was named alongside China, Russia, and Switzerland as a country to watch, as all four have had “continuing problems in the protection of intellectual property.” This comes just months after the US decided not to downgrade India on its rankings of countries with IP problems, something India said it would take the US to the World Trade Organization (WTO) over.
“India continues to present a seriously flawed environment for the promotion of copyright and Intellectual Property,” says the International Creativity and Theft-Prevention Caucus 2014 Watch List, released on Wednesday.
The report goes on to list specific grievances that the US has with piracy efforts in India.
“Despite a large domestic creative industry in film, music, and other copyright intensive industries, India continues to lag badly in both the legal framework for protection of IP and enforcement priorities,” it says. “Among the continuing issues in India are extremely high rates of cam-cording piracy, high levels of unlicensed software use by enterprises, and a lack of effective notice-and-takedown procedures for online piracy.”
The report also mentions the Special 301 report in which India was not downgraded on IP violations, stating that India is still a “Priority Watch” nation that will be independently evaluated by the US later this year.
“[The] Special 301 Report again lists India as a Priority Watch List nation and announced the intent to conduct an Out-of-Cycle Review of Indian progress later this year,” the report states.
The report is released by the International Creativity and Theft-Prevention Caucus, and is signed by its four co-chairs: Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), and Congressmen Adam B. Schiff (D-CA) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).
“This Watch List reminds us of the enormous economic importance of the American copyright industries and the many jobs they create,” said Whitehouse, in a statement. “We should celebrate our country’s continued success producing movies, music, and software, but also must protect these jobs from digital piracy and other forms of theft.”
India is routinely ranked as one of the worst countries in the world with regards to pirating entertainment and software content, but is always behind China, which usually leads the world with billions of dollars worth of pirated content distributed within the country each year.