An adequate way to determine whether or not copyrights are being effectively protected is to assess piracy rates in the main industries, like the software, motion picture, and music industries. In particular, U.S. industries monitor piracy through alliance agreements, like those entered into with the Business Software Alliance-BSA (to monitor software piracy), the Motion Picture Association – MPA (to monitor the motion picture industry), and The Recording Industry Association of America – RIAA (to monitor the music industry). Altogether, these alliances make up an international private sector coalition, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which monitors piracy in all countries. Based on the results of its surveys, IIPPA makes recommendations to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the entity which prepares every year the so-called “Special 301 Report”.
The Special 301 Report ranks countries based on their intellectual property protection standards and determines their piracy rates. In said report, countries which do not properly protect intellectual property are placed on the “Priority Watch” list or on the “Simple Watch” list. The former is the worst possible rating, while the latter reflects poor performance. Ideally, no country should be included on either list.
25 years have gone by since the first Special 301 Report was issued. In the first report, 25 countries were placed on the “Priority Watch” list and 17 on the “Simple Watch” list. Peru, except for the years 1999 and 2000 where it was placed on the “Priority Watch” list, has remained on the “Simple Watch” list, which means that, unfortunately, it has always been disapproved by USTR.
If we take into account some piracy rates included in said reports, we will conclude that in most industries piracy rates have increased. As a matter of fact, according to IIPA’s 1995 report, piracy in the motion picture industry stood at 95% and we believe that it currently stands at around 99%. The same is true for the music industry because in said report piracy used to be 83% and in IIPA’s 2008 Report it reached 98%. We believe that piracy in the music industry may be close to 99%.
From the above-mentioned industries, the only one which has managed to protect its lawful market from piracy is the software industry. According to IIPA’s 1995 report, piracy in Peru was 84% in 1995. This percentage has been gradually decreasing and according to BSA’s last report of June 2014, piracy stands at 65%; that is, it is almost 20% less. There may be different reasons why the music and motion picture industries have shown a significantly poorer performance and why the software industry is showing a better performance. I’d dare to say that it’s because in Peru the software industry has been carrying out preventive and sanctioning campaigns uninterruptedly for 20 consecutive years, unlike the music and video industry, which conducted campaigns during two or three years and then stopped because they thought that the State would carry out said campaigns on its own initiative, which never happened.