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MUMBAI: NBC Universal chairman and CEO Bob Wright has called
for governments and businesses to join forces in a rigorous
alliance to combat piracy and counterfeiting.
At the Third Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting
and Piracy, organised by the World Intellectual Property Organisation,
he appealed to broadband providers, Internet auction sites,
financial intermediaries and shipping companies to act more
promptly in controlling the flow of illegal downloads and
trading on their watch.
His speech was called "Hear No Evil No Longer".
He urged business leaders to put the issue of dealing with
piracy at the top of their agendas. "The days of 'hear
no evil, see no evil' must come to an end. The scale of the
epidemic leaves no choice. Legitimate businesses have to step
forward and declare that they will not profit on the back
of IP theft. And if they don't step forward, governments need
to adopt laws to require cooperation."
He noted that the technology-based, information-based society
of tomorrow depends on innovation, invention, and creativity.
These are the drivers of growth and progress. He warned that
if they are not protected, tomorrow’s world will suffer
greatly.
"And from where I sit, we are losing ground in this
battle. Much more urgent and concerted action must be taken
if we are to turn back a rising global surge of counterfeiting
and pirating, which threatens not just to dampen but to seriously
threaten the fire of innovation and invention that creates
economic growth."
He noted that one challenge involves raising the profile
of the vast extent of intellectual property theft — and
explaining and quantifying the threat to it. He stressed the
need for action that goes beyond just modest measures.
Piracy results in a ripple effect that magnifies the losses
suffered by any individual sector of the economy. For every
dollar a nation’s industry loses to counterfeiting and
piracy, that nation will lose at least three dollars of GDP.
When a movie studio loses revenues to piracy, it doesn’t
have that money to reinvest into making more movies and television.
Not only does this affect the individual studio but it also
impacts all the companies that would have contributed to or
benefited from these unmade productions. It reduces the revenue
of the upstream suppliers to movie producers, and of the downstream
industries, like movie theaters, DVD retailers, and video
rentals.
He went on to note that counterfeiting and piracy depends
on legitimate businesses for distribution and resale. It is
these businesses that must be enlisted in order to reduce
trade in counterfeit and pirated product.
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