Brasília - The battle against piracy just got some reinforcements this week with the formal establishment of the National Council Against Piracy and Intellectual Property Crimes which is housed in the Ministry of Justice. The new council's main task will be to draw up a national plan to combat piracy and the resultant loss of tax revenue, as well as crimes against intellectual property. The battle plan is move on three fronts: repression of the commerce of illegal goods on one hand; attempt to get price reductions of legal goods on the other; and finally, an educational campaign to make the public aware of the problem.
The council is presided over by the executive secretary of the Ministry of Justice, Luiz Paulo Teles Barreto, and consists of representatives of the ministries of Culture, Foreign Relations, Finance, Science and Technology, and Development, Industry and Foreign Trade, and Labor. Representatives from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, as well as the Federal Police and Highway Patrol, will also have seats on the council.
According to minister of Justice, Marcio Thomaz Bastos, the idea is to join forces in a concentrated effort. "Piracy is one of the many faces of organized crime that causes so much damage to our country," he declared.
A survey by the Mackenzie Institute reports that piracy is worth over US$20 billion (R$56 billion) annually in Brazil and means that two million jobs in the formal economy cease to exist (meanwhile the informal economy now accounts for 40% of all the business in Brazil, says the survey). Thus the fight against piracy is seen as more than a case for the police - it has deep economic and labor consequences as well.
In Brazil, it is estimated that sales of 33% of all the cigarettes, beverages and fuels are illegal. A total of some 200 million illegal copies of books are made each year. Thus, the government loses tax revenue estimated at US$110 million (R$300 million) and the formal economy loses around US$363 million (R$1 billion), each year. The music industry is also hard hit by this problem. It is estimated that 52% of all CDs sold in Brazil are pirate. That works out to a loss in tax revenue for the government of US$182 million (R$500 million). Finally, it is in computers and computer acessories that the situation is really dire. Over 60% of all computer programs used in Brazil are illegal. Over 70% of the computer hardware used is illegal. That works out to a loss of 45,000 jobs in the sector and tax fraud totalling over US$500 million (R$1.4 billion).
Agência Brasil
Reporter:Alessandra Bastos
Translator: Allen Bennett
11/26/2004
