CDMM: Training Workshop on Practical Measures against Sound and Audio-visual Piracy

IRIS 1995-9:1/4

Alfonso de Salas

Council of Europe, Directorate of Human Rights

The Council of Europe's Steering Committee on the Mass Media (CDMM) organised a training workshop on practical measures against sound and audio-visual piracy in Strasbourg on 13-15 September 1995.

There were about 100 participants. The workshop was primarily intended for professionals directly involved in the fight against activities such as the illegal reproduction and marketing of videocassettes, compact disks and decoders, the distribution of films without the copyright-holders' consent and the illegal reception of television programmes.

The various points were covered at five plenary training sessions on: (1) the typology and identification of pirated products; (2) technical means of protecting works and other ways of helping to prevent their being unlawfully reproduced, received and shown for commercial purposes; (3) legal and tax aspects of the fight against piracy; (4) the setting-up and management of pluridisciplinary professional bodies to combat piracy; (5) ways of making the public more aware of the damage done by piracy.

Each session was chaired by a trainer specialising in the question dealt with, backed by a panel representing the various sectors concerned (records, cassettes, films, decoders). The trainers/panel members were: Mr. Martin Boulton (International Video Federation, IVF), Mr. Carter Elzroth (Association of Commercial Televisions in Europe, ACT), Mr. Gilbert Grégoire (International Federation of Film Distributors' Associations, FIAD), Mr. Tim Kuik (Motion Picture Export Association of America, MPEAA), Mr. Martin Schaeffer and Mrs. Funkazi Koroye-Crooks (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, IFPI).

At the end of the workshop, the participants adopted a declaration in which they hoped that the Council of Europe would continue to monitor developments in this area closely. They also requested that the texts of Recommendation No. R(95)1 on measures against sound and audio-visual piracy (adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 13 January 1995; see: IRIS 1995-1: 4) and the illustrated vademecum on the fight against sound and audio-visual piracy (prepared by the CDMM) be widely distributed. These two publications are available from the Council of Europe Press in French and English. Versions of the vademecum in Italian and in several central and east European languages are also in the pipeline.