Stick 'Em Up!
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (APRIL 2004)
The
AAP’s Director of International Copyright Development,
Patricia Judd stunned her audience at the group’s
annual meeting in late-February with Jesse James-like
tales of raiding unsuspecting copyshops around the globe
to stamp out the estimated $500 million black-market
book biz, in which copy-machine crimes are at an all-time
high. That estimate, she pointed out, is based on publishers’
accounts in fewer than 50 countries and does not include
Eastern Europe, South America or Internet sales. In
the three months prior to her talk, Judd visited local
and regional government officials and publishing associations
in the eight countries where the AAP is currently proselytizing
copyright-protection: China, where estimated losses
reach $40 million, Thailand ($28 million), Philippines
($45 million), Taiwan ($20 million), South Korea ($38
million), Singapore ($2 million), Hong Kong ($9 million),
and Malaysia ($9 million). In addition to many already
successful anti-piracy ventures, springtime raids are
planned for Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and other
far reaches.
The AAP’s role in ending word piracy goes beyond catching
violators with their hands in the printing presses.
The committee — which includes big US houses such as
Harper Collins, McGraw-Hill, and Random
House and the overseas Cambridge University Press,
Elsevier, and Oxford University Press,
to name just a few — is actively negotiating with foreign
governments on free trade agreements. It launched poster
and letter-writing campaigns urging members of various
Asian university communities to respect copyright laws.
Committee Chair Deborah Wiley spoke at a meeting
of the British Publishers’ Association in September
2003, and the groups may join forces on future projects
in India, the Middle East and China. It also participates
in the working group of the International Intellectual
Property Alliance.
Plenty of lobbying is done on US soil, as well. The
group presented a special report to the US Trade Representative
in mid-February, which highlighted all the major territories
that the AAP is engaged in anti-piracy enforcement initiatives
(for more information on this report, see www.iipa.com).
The group presses the US government to engage in bilateral
or multilateral discussions regarding copyright protection
whenever an Executive or Legislative Branch team travels
abroad or when a foreign government sends a delegation
to the US.
©2004
Publishing Trends
