Watchdog: Open source curbs intellectual property abuse

Venezuela's intellectual property service Sapi believes it can combat intellectual property rights violations by encouraging informal street vendors to distribute open source software, online newsletter La Red reported. The informal market accounts for two thirds of software, video and music sales, and the intellectual property rights dilemma is not going to be solved overnight, according to Sapi director Eduardo Samán. Therefore the best way of fighting piracy of proprietary software is to encourage the distribution of open source software, Samán said. According to Samán there are no reliable figures to indicate the level of losses caused by non-authorized software sales in Venezuela. According to a "Special Report 301" by the US Department of Commerce Venezuela is on the "grey" list of piracy of video games, music and software in South America but with lower levels than the worst culprits around the tri-border region between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. Under current Venezuelan law infringements of property rights are considered a private offence rather than public. So it is the responsibility of the victim, affected by the sale of an unauthorized copy of one its products, to take legal action, not the state. This method does not appear to have been very effective so far as there have been only four cases reported to the organized crime fighting body CICPC since 1999. However, Samán does not believe the immediate solution is to establish new laws. He points out the case of Colombian law 263, approved in 2000, which he believes aggravated the problem rather than working to solve it. Law 263 made intellectual property rights violations a public offence and modified income tax law obliging companies to promise not to use pirated software as well as giving the finance ministry the authority to audit and enforce this legislation. According to Samán, the best strategy is to encourage the migration to open source software and technology, as repressive policies only drive the problem further underground. "It is necessary to allow grace periods that permit a less traumatic migration," Samán said. Samán added that a government decree on open source software and a legal bill on open technology also form part of the same strategy.