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.
