Piracy and Counterfeiting are back in the news again.
On piracy, there’s a new round of lawsuits against people who have been illegally sharing copyright-protected materials, although this time it’s movies, including the Oscar-winning film “The Hurt Locker.”
And on counterfeits, a cache of over seven million counterfeit pills, including counterfeit Viagra and other common prescription drugs, was just seized in Dubai, a central distribution port for destinations all over the world.
Two weeks ago, a Canadian man was arrested for selling counterfeit cancer medication through his Canadian Internet pharmacy website.
Oh, and the same guy was selling pirated business software. So he’s adept at both piracy AND counterfeiting.
How inhumane is it for someone to be selling supposed cancer drugs over the Internet that turn out to be "a white, powdery substance that was later determined through laboratory tests to contain starch, dextrin, dextrose or lactose!”
But while health and safety concerns about counterfeits are primary, not to be overlooked are the economic impacts of piracy and counterfeiting.
The creative industries—in other words, the industries that depend on intellectual property creation and protection—create exactly the kind of high-paying, information-age jobs our economy so desperately needs right now. Everyone understands that the way forward for the U.S. economy is not in our cheap labor or our raw materials. Rather, our economic growth increasingly depends on creation and innovation, and it is through our ability to create things that people want and export them around the world that real, sustainable job creation will occur.
So everyone has a stake in making sure that creativity and innovation are valued in our society—not just the creators and innovators themselves, but all the industries and jobs that flow downstream from innovation and creation.
Piracy and counterfeiting, especially the large scale criminal enterprises are responsible for the majority of violations, are a cancer on innovation, not only eating into the value that should naturally accrue to those who create and innovate, but also eroding all the economic activity and job creation that depends on the innovation economy.
So, while we’re among the first to criticize government for its intrusions into the private economy, and think we’d be better off if government simply stopped doing about half the things it tries to do, there’s an obvious and legitimate role for government here. We’re glad to see the feds stepping up efforts to protect U.S. citizens and the U.S. economy against the ravages of counterfeit and pirated goods, and you should be, too.