TRADE-YUGOSLAVIA: Serbia Slow to Stop Music Piracy

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jul 18 2002 (IPS) - A raid on a music store on the outskirts of Belgrade this week led to seizure of 750,000 illegally copied CDs. “This was the biggest illegal outlet in the region and maybe in Europe,” says police chief Jadranko Petkovic. But it was only the large tip of an iceberg.

Serbia has come over the years to be a supplier of illegal CDs all over the Balkans. A new law on intellectual protection rights is due to be adopted by the end of the year. The police enforcing the law will have a lot to take on.

“The pirate industry has moved from Bulgaria into Serbia,” says Petkovic. “The owner of General Disc Technology we raided provided no documents on rights to reproduce CDs,” he said. “The equipment and all the material came from Bulgaria.”

For more than a year since Bulgaria introduced strict regulation of video and CD reproduction in accordance with European Union (EU) laws, a number of firms moved to Serbia where no such laws exist. Serbia became a distribution centre for neighbouring Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia.

The regime of Slobodan Milosevic who fell from power in October 2000 did not pass any copyright laws in the years of Serbia’s isolation in the nineties. Instead the Serbian regime launched propaganda that video and CD piracy was a matter of Serb patriotism. Illegal production thrived.

Criminals of all ethnic origins in former Yugoslavia found common ground in these illegal operations. The scheme deprived state budgets of millions of dollars a year by way of tax.

At the same time, firms that had taken legal rights for reproduction of videos and CDs before Milosevic took power in the early nineties, barely survived. Their hopes rose with the change of the regime in October 2000, but little has changed so far.

“Serbia still lacks regulation in this area,” says Nenad Raicevic, owner of HI FI Centre, a leading legal CD producer. “I doubt that this seizure will change much, as it’s common knowledge that such production sites exist in many Serbian towns and in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica.”

Under existing law unauthorised reproduction of video and music cassettes is punishable with three months imprisonment. CDs are not mentioned. The pirate industry makes video copies from demonstration tapes bought in the Far East. CDs are copied at home using fast CD writers.

Illegal CD and video copies are available for 2.50 dollars. Legal copies start from 15 dollars.

Serbian TV stations have aired pirated copies of Western blockbusters months before they reached cinemas. The former director of a TV station that showed more than 80 blockbusters in 1999 and 2000 is now facing trial. The legitimate distributor is claiming more than 800,000 dollars in damages.

“It’s high time we stopped this and became a civilised country, with taxes going where they should,” says Serbian finance minister Bozidar Djelic.

Dejan Petricevic from Tuck says “the budget of Serbia is deprived of at le ast 22.5 million dollars a year in taxes just from the pirate video industry.”

Video pirates have ruined cinemas in Serbia. Of the 400 cinema houses in 1990, only 150 survive.

There are an estimated 1,500 video clubs in Serbia. Many club owners are involved in illegal video production, and sell copies under the counter at a fraction of the regular price.

Legal experts say the pirate industry thrives to an extent all over Europe. “Developed countries tolerate up to 20 per cent illegal production,” says Raicevic. “In Serbia, pirate production of videos and CDs is 90 per cent, meaning almost the whole market.”