TRADE-MAURITIUS: Paradise Island, Pirates’ Den

• by Nasseem Ackbarally (port louis)
• Thursday, June 25, 2009
• Inter Press Service

‘‘Four DVDs for 100 rupees. Four DVDs for 100 rupees,’’ shouts the vendor near the main market in the capital where small shops and street hawkers operate under the eyes of the police. A hundred rupees is less than three dollars.

Some people are selling pirated goods after converting their food or luxury goods shops into houses where the fakes are sold. Imran Gooneeah, a street hawker, blames jobs scarcity for his decision to sell counterfeit goods.

A shop owner explains his decision thus: ‘‘Why did the authorities approve my licence if they do not want me to sell such goods? It costs me 5,000 rupees (about 160 dollars) annually.’’

Consumers are also not helpful to the artists. It seems they don’t care about the originals when they can get good copies. Emanu Diver is one of them. He listens to rock music, reggae and is a fan of U.S. He buys fakes on the street.

‘‘I cannot buy the originals at 700 rupees (22 dollars). I can get ten or 15 fakes with the same amount of money,’’ he claims. Or he can download material for free from the internet.

Well-known local singing artist Kishore Taucoory is one of the many victims of piracy. Police arrested the culprits who had made copies of his albums and sold them for a few rupees on the streets .They were taken to court and received a fine.

Taucoory feels discouraged: ‘‘I got nothing. I lost lots of money. I cannot even prosecute them in a civil court, claiming financial compensation, because it is a waste of time and money.’’ He doubts the political will to end piracy. So he feels it’s better to forget about making money from music and films.

Jean-Jacques Arjoon, another local singer, agrees. Many artists have difficulty surviving, becoming dependent on the few shows they get to do at tourist resorts every month.

One vendor revealed that blank CDs and DVDs are imported and used to manufacture movie and music products from branded products bought abroad or downloaded from the internet.

The manufacturing is run more or less on an industrial basis. Modern information technology (IT) equipment is used to illegally make copies of movies and music albums from Europe, the U.S., India and Mauritius. Copies are also imported from China.

The scourge of IT piracy is very real in Mauritius. Pirated copies of Windows are on sale everywhere. In 2007, the rate of software piracy in Mauritius was 57 percent, according to the Business Software Alliance.

Police raids seem rare. An anti-piracy unit was set up in August 2001 to combat piracy and to promote and enforce copyright and trade mark act. Ten officers are attached to this police unit.

The last raid heard dates back to February this year when material worth more than 31,250 dollars was seized by the unit.

Thousands of fake CDs and DVDs of local productions and sophisticated IT equipment were found. The goods seized included 17 DVD replicators; 10 DVD gravers; 1,000 local CDs; 75,000 blank CDs; and 15,000 blank DVDs.

A 35-year-old person, known to the police for his involvement in illegal activities, was arrested and released on bail of 315 dollars.

Hawkers with pirated Ralph Lauren goods that they were selling to tourists have also been arrested and released on bail. On the nearby island of Réunion, police seized 5,000 polo shirts that arrived from Mauritius recently.

Another headache is the illegal importation of fake vehicle spare parts worth millions of rupees that are sold cheaper than the brand names on the market. Japanese motor vehicle manufacturer Nissan discovered recently that the volume of spare parts it was exporting to the island did not correspond with the number of vehicles running here.

‘‘Almost 75 percent of Nissan spare parts sold on the island are fakes,’’ Marcel Lapierre, director of FakeBusters, a company fighting piracy, told IPS.

In December 2008, Nissan Mauritius started a campaign to inform drivers of the risks and disadvantages associated with the use of fake spare parts. ‘‘The authorities seem confused. There is no real will from them to deal with this issue,’’ he comments.

Lapierre has complained several times to the relevant authorities since 2004 but in vain. ‘‘Either politicians interfere or the legislation is badly drafted,’’ he observes.

IPS learnt that a trade-mark owner registers a trademark against payment with customs. The officers have to inform such an owner when any shipment of products bearing the registered trade name arrives for importation.

‘‘They don’t do it,’’ Lapierre points out, adding that ‘‘fake spare parts continue to flood the market. I am fed up.’’ FakeBusters is now taking the matter to court.

Arts and culture minister Vasant Bunwaree recently said that although various efforts are underway to counter piracy, the long-term solution remains the education of the public so that they prefer originals to pirated works. Anti-piracy campaigns succeed only, he added, if consumers stop buying pirated goods.

‘‘Checking this scourge is becoming more and more difficult with the advent of new ICT,’’ the minister emphasised.

The government has launched an intellectual property rights public awareness campaign highlighting the ‘‘dangers’’ of counterfeit products and stressing the official intention to protect and enforce intellectual property rights.

Billboards, talks in high schools, television programmes, advertising campaigns in the media as well as the distribution of posters and flyers running until September are used to convince consumers to ‘‘prefer’’ the originals.

Legislation provides for a fine of 9,500 dollars and a maximum prison sentence of two years for piracy. For a second conviction, the fine goes to 15,700 dollars and imprisonment for up to eight years.

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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