Wednesday, July 13th, 2011 by Sandra Aistars
The Copyright Alliance

Today I participated in a day-long advocacy effort on Capitol Hill in support of efforts to fight online theft. The event was sponsored by the Global intellectual Property Center of the US Chamber of Commerce, and its Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy.  The event was remarkable in multiple respects.

First, it brought together a diverse coalition of 50 or so IP intensive communities across the country.  Participants spanned every sector of the economy, and included corporate as well as labor interests, and voices such as ours, which speak for the copyright owner next door.   Such an inclusive and varied coalition coming together in support of one piece of legislation is telling in itself.

Moreover, meeting the other members of the coalition drove home the myriad ways individual jobs and communities across the country are impacted by online theft.  For instance  –

Zumba fitness is a company headquartered in Florida that has popularized a dance-based fitness program.  It licenses the brand for use on consumer products that are sold to instructors who lead classes in venues around the country (and in fact throughout the world).  When its products are counterfeited and sold by rogue websites, not only are jobs at the company and the licensed manufacturers of those products affected, but the impact extends also to individual fitness instructors, and the facilities where they teach.

Colleagues with whom I spent the day each had compelling stories to tell of impacts on consumers and on legitimate manufacturers of goods such as those produced by members of the Motor Equipment Manufacturer’s Association.  Dan Houton, the Director of Government Relations of that organization, told of instances where counterfeit and dangerous automobile parts such as brakes and air bags are sold to unsuspecting businesses and consumers by foreign rogue sites that use substandard manufacturing processes, and put lives at risk.

Another colleague, Matthew Kandrach, of the 60 Plus association spoke of the risk to seniors who turn to online pharmacies and receive medicines that are contaminated with everything from chalk dust to paint to arsenic, and that may contain too little, too much or entirely incorrect ingredients.  His membership is additionally particularly impacted by the fraudulent activities of rogue website operators.  The computer security firm McAfee has pointed out that rogue sites harbor the majority of malware that is used to attack consumers, enterprises and government.  Seniors, often on limited incomes, are particularly hard hit by the identity theft, malware and phishing scams perpetrated by such sites.

The diversity of stories, economic ramifications and health and safety issues raised by unchecked intellectual property theft online should give everyone pause. An unlawful Internet where any unlicensed, unregulated or unsafe product is allowed to be transmitted, bought and sold alongside legal products is not in the interests of any business or consumer.

Read the article here: http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2011/07/unlawful-unregulated-unsafe/