SOFIA, Bulgaria - It is a sweltering June day in the Bulgarian capital, with the mercury rising to 32° C (90° F).
I'm standing on a bustling dusty street opposite the notorious Slaveikov Square in the city center. Officially, this downtown square, part of the city's shopping district, houses Bulgaria's most popular book market, but the locale has for years been known as a distribution center for pirated goods, mostly music, movies and software. I stroll between the numerous stalls, most of them offering novels, computer training literature, textbooks, manuals and even old books for resale. But at the Slaveikov book market, the stands generating most customer interest ain't selling books at all.
It has grown into a familiar scene. CD covers, hundreds of them, neatly stacked in carefully organized catalogues, lying on a dozen of portable tables, scattered between the booksellers. The procedure is well-known and even better tested. I flip through piles of mostly photocopied disk covers, sorted by type -- music, movies, games, software collections. You can find virtually everything: Microsoft's latest operating system Windows Server 2003, recently released "The Matrix Reloaded" movie, Madonna's newest album "American Life", professional 3D animation software Maya, several versions of the popular computer game "The Sims", even a compilation of episodes of the highly-rated TV show "Friends".
I decide to buy a two-CD pack with this year's Oscar-winning movie "Chicago", a film that is yet to reach Bulgaria's cinemas. The salesman, a guy in his early twenties, makes a call on his cell phone and requests the disks to be delivered.
The piracy giant
The 1989 fall of the Communist regime in Bulgaria brought fundamental change to the Eastern European nation. Alongside the long-suppressed freedom of speech, rediscovered pluralism and private initiative, rampant corruption, inadequate legislation and the urgent need for reforms in all sectors of society were the main factors, marshalling the priorities of law enforcement agencies. And despite some early moves on part of Bulgarian legislators, the issue of copyright and intellectual property protection remained on the backburner.
In the early 1990s, the country became a pivot for pirated audiovisual and software products. According to some studies, at one point, Bulgaria was the second largest exporter of music, movie and software piracy, just after China, a state more than 160 times larger in terms of population.
In 1998, over 90 percent of all musical recordings and business software were illegally used. The situation with entertainment applications -- computer and console games -- was even worse with nearly 100 percent of all usage deemed unlawful, according to data gathered by the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA). Bulgaria was a major source of illicitly pressed compact disks, most of which originating from several CD plants in the country. Although the factories' production was widely available on the domestic market, a substantial amount was exported internationally, primarily to Russia and Ukraine, but also to a number of Central and Western European countries, including Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Yet the period from 1995 to 1998 marked the first major crackdowns on the piracy market. Under the gathering threat of limited economic sanctions by the United States and after several listings on the U.S. Special 301 Priority Foreign Country Watch List, the Bulgarian government launched long-awaited measures to crush copyright crime. All CD manufacturing facilities were shut down and required to obtain proper licenses and verifications before reopening. Numerous raids were conducted at known trade centers, including the infamous Slaveikov Square. Tens of thousands of pirated CDs were forfeited by the authorities both from the book market and from nearby warehouses, with the noteworthy assistance of piracy-fighting organizations like the Business Software Alliance (BSA), BullACT (Bulgarian Association Against Copyright Theft) and even representatives of individual IT companies such as Microsoft.
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(Photo: Svetlozar Online) Voluminous catalogues full of CD covers let customers quickly browse through the collections, while protecting sellers from surprise police inspections. |
Buying -- easy as ever
As I waited under the scorching Sun for my CDs to be delivered, I started thinking whether anything has really changed. In its regular recommendations, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has for years scathed Bulgaria's ineffectual judicial system for not bringing the violators of intellectual property to apposite justice.
"The markets in Bulgaria are still swamped with pirated product and Bulgaria's overall enforcement system continues to be dramatically ineffective," reads the latest IIPA report.
In the past 14 years, a fraction of all investigations resulted in court hearings and convictions. Eventually, almost all sentences represented ludicrously small criminal fines.
I asked the salesman where he got the disks from. My question aroused his attention instantaneously.
Here, it is generally accepted that you do not inquire about the stock's legality or who actually manages the distribution business. A multitude of police raids in the past, started with what seemed to be a normal customer, who later turned out to be an undercover officer, part of a massive anti-piracy operation.
The four or five questions I managed to ask him resulted in a single response.
"I'm just selling here," he said.
I told him I was a journalist, investigating copyright piracy in Bulgaria, but that only seemed to panic him further.
At this point another man approached the stall, carrying in a translucent nylon bag what appeared to be the disks I had ordered. I was about to get the movie "Chicago" for less than $10, but the salesman decided it's safer to drive me away. When the other guy heard of my questioning, he got clearly upset and tucked the nylon bag under the counter.
Experience with law enforcement has taught these people not one or two lessons. The news spread across the square pretty fast and most traders started looking rather alarmed.
Two hours later, I returned to the Slaveikov book market. A group of three Germans and their translator were looking at the famous CD catalogues. The man behind the booth had evidently just managed to sell them a CD with the Adobe Photoshop graphics suite. He was telling them that if they buy three more disks, he'll let them take a fifth for free.
Piracy haven or piracy heaven?
As a phenomenon, music, movie and software piracy has always found breeding ground in countries with three specific characteristics:
weak, insufficient copyright protection laws or slow-moving, overwhelmed judiciary;
growing need for computer and Internet technology;
small purchasing ability of the population.
Bulgaria has them all:
modern, EU-compatible legislation, but corrupt, ineffective and snail-paced judicial system;
computing swiftly pervading homes and businesses;
low income with the average salary under $1,400 per year.
The last 5 years saw piracy substantially decreasing. In the late 1990s, BullACT, the organization fighting for the intellectual property rights of major motion picture studios, enjoyed tremendous success in closing illegal video rental stores and better marketing low-cost video cassettes and DVD disks. Today, 24-hour video renting and a movie ticket can go as low as $1.20. Due to the threat of heavy fines and potential (albeit unlikely) imprisonment, a growing number of businesses are starting to use licensed software.
At private homes, however, the picture remains grave as ever. Pirated disks are relatively cheap since the distributors are unconcerned with whether they contain a dozen songs or software worth thousands of dollars. In Bulgaria, unlike company offices and Internet cafés, home users have never encountered copyright law enforcement, which serves as an incentive to buy in a more appropriate for the economic reality way.
What really shook the piracy market in Bulgaria, however, was neither law enforcement nor the threats of it. The traders on Slaveikov Square are now disturbed by competition -- competition, coming not from other pirates, but from large, prevalent Bulgarian companies.
