Intellectual Property Rights part 2 Essay - 3,430 words

... or fee of any kind for any one. Let there be no censor of films. Let there be no tax or duty on paper or magnetic tapes or films or software etc. Let there be no discrimination. Either all in the business is paying taxes or none should pay! Well it sure is difficult but not impossible. Impediments should not deter the government to make right decisions in the best interest of the nation. What ever may be the case, piracy in any shape, would never be acceptable to any dignified nation including Pakistan.


The pirates, particularly the video pirates, have flooded almost every home with obscene, vulgar and uncensored films. They are making mockery of the law of the land, causing losses of billions of rupees to the nation, in the shape of "lost taxes", promoting corruption, immorality and sexual violence among youth by flooding the market with cheap, vulgar, pornographic and uncensored films, promoting a society rampant with smuggling, tax evasion and illegitimate business, deterring and discouraging legal business, deterring and discouraging foreign investments, projecting Pakistan as a nation of pirates among the global community, building personal empires on the debris of national economy, values and pride. Yet they are considered "respectable businessmen". The "Pirate Mafia" is laughing. They seem to be above the law and openly defying it. It is very difficult to comprehend that the administration feels helpless against them.


It is also not understood as to why action against these criminals is being delayed on the pretext of more "important" matters. In the present scenario, what could be more important for Pakistan to have more sources of revenue generations? What could be more important for Pakistan than to have corruption free and legitimate business flourishing? What could be more important for Pakistan to have morally strong, healthy and disciplined youth? What could be more important for Pakistan than be called a nation of honorable people? Evading national taxes, robbing some one of his life long earning of Intellectual Property through piracy and giving the owner a heart attack, is no different than car snatching on gun point or murder or "plundering the banks". Luckily for Pakistan's video industry, couple of years back, a local entrepreneur invested a huge amount in this field, and tried to legitimize so far unaccounted and thriving illegitimate business. This company concluded an agreement with the major studios of Hollywood and for the first time in the history of Pakistan, started releasing legal video films, under license, after getting these censored by Central Board of Censorship in Pakistan. The nations' share in one such legally released video print is about Rs 100 (in shape of various taxes like, Sales Tax, Duties and Censorship fee), while the pirates pay nothing and pocket everything. There are approximately 40,000 video and Laser film outlets in the country, (with one of the biggest video pirate market at Rainbow Centre Karachi, followed by Rafi/Zaitoon Plaza, Lahore and Imperial Market, Rawalpindi, having trillions of rupees as annual "Tax free" turnover). So, modestly speaking, even if one legal print is purchased by each shop, (minimum 25 legal English titles are being released per month at present) the nation can get revenues to the tune of Rs 100,000,000 per month (triple of this amount, so far going to the pirates).


(This example is based on minimum sale, while maximum sale can yield billions and even trillions if Hindi movies etc. are included.) (Richardson, p. 176) This company once again, for the first time in the history of video films, paid as taxes in millions to the nation (accounting for 65 % of total censorship fee) single-handedly in addition to a substantial amount of royalties to the owners of copyright for the films released by them. Ironically, the governments, this or previous, had been keen in getting the taxes, but not very keen to ensure writ of law. As a result the poor patriotic entrepreneur, who was depending on the law of the land, and various international treaties, has suffered enormous losses. The worst part of this tragedy is, making the laws and then using those laws for personal gains. Fortunately, a little effort put in by the government in controlling piracy can generate the much desired revenues for debt retirement and, more importantly, protect the future generations from becoming the victims of immorality and corruption.


Incidentally, a trade association of major Hollywood studios, called Motion Picture Association has done a tremendous job by making general public and administration aware of the importance of copyright protection. A few other affected organizations, like Oxford University Press, Paramount Books and other local entrepreneurs have joined hands to eliminate the social evil of piracy from the society. Despite a very luke-warm approach by the law enforcers, the ceaseless efforts and financial support by these set ups, about 1000 anti piracy criminal cases have been registered within last couple of years. (Richardson, p. 194) This is just a very small fraction of what should have been done, had there been complete government support for such enforcement. As per available statistics, it is interesting to note that, about, Rs 25,000 per criminal case is spent in terms of man-hour wages of police-force, transportation, l ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: intellectual property, new york, more important, copyright, pakistan

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