Internet piracy is growing rapidly worldwide. Increasingly effective compression technologies and the penetration of high-speed broadband connections have transformed into the roots of contemporary illegal music, movie and software distribution. For nearly four years now, the concept of peer-to-peer file-swapping has rattled the IT industry, raising fundamental questions on intellectual property protection, unimaginable just half a dozen years ago.
File-sharing networks like Kazaa form multimillion-member communities, exchanging millions of files a day, the vast majority of which indisputably constituting copyright infringement.
In 2001, Napster, the pioneer music-swapping system, was forced to shut down after a U.S. court ordered the removal of all material violating the intellectual property rights of numerous record labels. Due to its centralized structure, Napster had an opportunity to act and, willingly or not, was forced to do so.
"If you need free music, movies, games or PC software, come to Bulgaria," Ivan Tenev, a 21-year-old computer enthusiast from Sofia, told me.
The microcosm of Bulgarian Internet space can offer you unrestricted, cost-free and high-speed access to gargantuan piles of easy-to-find audio, video and software files. A couple of years ago, one of Bulgaria's most prominent Internet Service Providers (ISPs), ProLink (also known as Techno-Link), launched a free web hosting service, offering 1000 megabytes of space for unlimited use. ProLink's sweet offer was accessible from Bulgaria only due to the high costs of international Internet traffic, but its users quickly understood the service's true potential was not in hosting small personal web sites.
Today, Techno-Link's free web hosting servers store hundreds of thousands of music, movie, business and entertainment software files, packed with search engines, alphabetical lists and useful message boards.
"You can find practically everything. And if it's something that's actually not there, you can always request for someone to add it," Mr. Tenev told me.
ProLink has developed a sophisticated file-sharing system, where users can upload large quantities of data in publicly visible directories, so that others can later download it from a central, easily searchable and extremely reliable server.
This type of free file hosting is representing a huge magnet for customers. ProLink's clients have higher-speed, priority access to the system. As part of Bulgaria's largest Internet services company, Spectrum Net, ProLink is an important income channel, seeing constant growth and strong customer satisfaction.
Due to the practical lack of law enforcement and the cost-effective business model, similar services sprang up overnight, loaded with Bulgarian and foreign music, good-quality movies and TV shows, wide-ranging business and entertainment software. In return, the ISPs providing the free web hosting facilities get more clients eager to download.
Officially, these companies maintain a "zero-tolerance policy" against pirated products and claim they remove infringing content upon notification from copyright owners.
Marina Malcheva, administrative director of the Bulgarian Association of the Music Producers (BAMP), told me that the web hosting firms meet requests for removal of limited amounts of content, but are utterly reluctant to delete materials on a large scale, citing technical difficulties and a time-consuming process.
"When we demand the removal of, let's say, 90 percent of the music files [stored on the server], they start dodging us," she said. "They know what they have to do."
Alexander Tuikov, an expert at BullACT (Bulgarian Association Against Copyright Theft), was less harsh, noting that at this point, "the companies are gliding on the edge."
To retain the status quo, the hosting providers resort to obfuscation of ability and responsibility. All services assert their users and their users alone are answerable for the files they store and that the companies do not have the capability to monitor nor the knowledge about the legality of the content stored on their systems.
In reality, this is almost completely false. From a legal standpoint and according to their own terms of service, the Internet Service Providers are required to remove the materials violating Bulgarian laws (including those protecting intellectual property rights), which they have knowledge of. In fact, the structure of their services encourages copyright infringement. At ProLink, for instance, a sophisticated forum system has separate discussions on exchanging or requesting links for movies, music, software and games. Users who reach their limit of 1000 MB can request, and are often granted, additional or even unlimited web space, after a review of their uploads so far. Techno-Link's free web hosting also offers an MP3 catalogue of thousands of audio files located on the server -- nearly the entire collection constitutes clear and indisputable violation of numerous copyrights. On top of that, to limit the duplication of large files, the companies are running specific scanning procedures aimed at removing already uploaded content. Just as easily, detection and deletion of once removed materials can be easily performed, curbing illegally stored music, movies and software.
Two other prominent Internet Service Providers in Bulgaria, BOL.BG and Bulgaria Online, have undertaken even bolder moves. The two companies maintain extensive, publicly available and internally maintained collections of MP3 files. On top of that, BOL.BG, a hugely popular company, hosting the official web site of the Bulgarian President and closely related with the country's branch of Internet Society (ISOC), has established a server available exclusively to its customers, offering access to thousands of songs, movies and even pornography copied from paid adult web sites.
On the other hand, Bulgaria Online's MP3 archive consists of over 106,000 audio files by nearly 2,300 artists. A company statement posted on the web site reads: "The music [...] is intended solely for acquaintance with the work of a specific author. By using the present catalogue you agree to remove the downloaded files within 24 hours..." Marina Malcheva from BAMP called the notification "ridiculous."
"Nowhere in the law it's written you can violate it for 24 hours," she said.
The Bulgarian Association of the Music Producers (BAMP), an industry group, whose members represent all major record labels, including BMG, EMI, Universal Music and Warner Music, has filed a complaint with the National Service for Combating Organized Crime (NSCOC), an agency working under the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior.
"The crimes against intellectual property are out of law enforcement's priorities," Mariana Lazarova, BAMP's Executive Director, noted. "The authorities basically consider the problem a private issue."
Both BAMP and BullACT expressed satisfaction with current legislation in the country, but harshly criticized the apathetic enforcement of the law. On numerous occasions anti-piracy organizations have indicated police raids and customs seizures of pirated products as examples of progress in the right direction. In the meantime, however, the uninterrupted and public availability of illicitly reproduced materials, both on physical disks and on the Internet, testifies to flagrant failures in Bulgaria, a EU membership candidate.
Of the 192 criminal cases commenced last year against violators of intellectual property laws, none resulted in jail time. The majority of the 84 actually convicted were sentenced to pay fines of less than $1,000. The Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) reported $21.9 million of losses in Bulgaria only, due to rampant illegal distribution of computer games -- an estimated 91 percent of all entertainment software used in the country .
Stefan Stefanov, 24, works at a Sofia music store, selling (legally) CDs, audio cassettes and musical instruments.
"The music market in Bulgaria is extremely shrunk," he told Svetlozar Online. "This is a factor of critical importance to Bulgarian artists who barely make any money from selling CDs. I'm sure most of them benefit from [free] distribution of their recordings on the Internet, which, in one way or another, gains them popularity among their target audience. Fans are of particular significance for the primary source of their income -- live performances at local clubs, discos and concert appearances."
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(Photo: Svetlozar Online) A stall in Sofia's city center offering illegal CDs for sale. |
Still, the improvement of the piracy situation demands deliberate government-supported actions to address the underlying reasons for the tattered economic picture. The level of consumer culture in Bulgaria remains discouragingly low. Marred both by the hard-pressed customer wallet and the, although fading away, legacy of the Bulgarian mentality afflicted by 45 years of totalitarian rule, Bulgarians continue to belittle the financial aspects of copyrighted materials.
Unfortunately, with the exception of 1998, when Bulgaria faced the potential of partial economic sanctions by the U.S. due to unacceptably high piracy rates, the state's focus keeps swaying away from intellectual property protection.
The country not only misses an opportunity to bring fresh, badly needed tax incomes from copyright holders' revenues, but its inert conduct serves as an unfavorable educational model.
In its 11th annual survey, Edward Murphy, the President and CEO of the U.S. National Music Publishers' Association, wrote: "It is no secret that piracy is the greatest specter facing the music industry today."
Even more. Piracy destroys creativity, deprives essential funds required for new talents to emerge and most of all, its significant pervasion bolsters the distorted image of its noncriminal, normal, yet essential existence.
Today, 14 years after the fall of Communism and 4 years before its potential integration into the European Union, Bulgaria is facing a drastic, economically-onerous and intolerable problem, which, to some extent, seems hidden from the public eye. And sooner or later, this vortex of crime, broadening piracy purview, blatant arrogance and negative influence will resurface as a thumb in the eye of this nation, its people and its future.
