Wow, cool man, big thanks! http://ugzgmoigppzx.com

Hey Quico-

You raise some good points, and I think most people are sensitive to the need to share things like new medicines, vaccines, fertilizers, agricultural and manufacturing technologies and so on with developing countries (indeed, I can think of situations in which developed countries are criticized for being TOO APT to get the developing world to adopt them). But much of the piracy is not in sectors that will help modernize developing countries or lift masses out of poverty: we're talking about pirated movies and CD's, knock-off designer clothing and watches. I have a hard time fitting that kind of behavior into any kind of Robin Hood rationale. I like getting Hollywood DVD's for pennies on the dollar as much as the next guy, but where is the larger social good that justifies the stealing?

OK
But once you should write about this issue.
Especially after WW2 are coming to USA scientist from all over the world. These are high educated and smart people who then work in USA. But for their education and growing up did not pay USA no cent.
For oil you have to paid 120$/barrel but for educated people nothing.
Do you understand this is stealing the money from the poor countries.

"I shall have to read the US Trade Representative’s report to learn how much money is lost to piracy in Venezuela's major cities."

Er, wouldn't that have been a good start *before* writing this meandering piece that is obviously trying desperately to "get the boot in" once again to Chavez?

That dead horse with the "Chavez" sign placed on it you have there at WaPo still being whipped?

Ok, another "knock" at Venezuela, but frankly, Mexico doesn't come off too well either.

And of course, Commie China is a big user of pirated software.

I have an idea. Since these foreign nations are so bad, why not put a tariff of 100 per cent on their goods (ok, we'll exempt oil from this, but we probably shouldn't), and that'll show 'em.

And look at the money we'd make, and maybe we'd get our manufacturing back.

And I'm not worried that Venezuela is the "bad guy" of the moment. WaPo always needs a "bad guy".

Hell, one day it's France, and now we're sending our aircraft jobs from defense appropriations over there. so, who knows? things change when the moneychangers get involved.

I see we have a contingent of pro-Obama Marxists here tonight. Hola hermano Che.

Oh my, there are problems in the workers paradise of Hugo Chavez?

WA PO still has the huevos to tell the truth. Bug off!

More half-baked anti-Venezuela propaganda from the Post. What a shocker!!!!! Keep up the bad work, Ibsen.

Don't get mad with the misleading heading.
It should be considered the source: author is Spanish speaker, and in Spanish, questions are used to excite imagination, and rarely answered directly.
I guess, if author is a Venezuelan writer, paid by the WaPo, he does not want to stir Chavez's discomfort, and he just tries to let you wondering if Chavez is stealing oil from the Exxons and Shells of this world. Devilish!
(Get it?) (Dah, I let you wondering who I think is/are/was/will be devilish.) (Would Chavez be devilish?) (Would Exxons and Shells be devilish?) (Would Mr. Bush be devilish?) (Would WaPo be it?) (Would I be devilish?) (Would you be devilish?) (Would China, Mexico, Brazil?) (As in Spanish.) (Get it?)

What do you call it when a country's elite arrange the laws so they reap all the wealth from the exploitation of the nation's natural resources?

Could that be called piracy?

And what would you call it when a domestic elite makes sure the laws are written so they reap all the benefits of exploiting a country's national resources?

Could that be piracy too?

When government regulations (tariffs, import duties) drive up prices too far above free market prices, black markets inevitably develop.

What kind of market shall we call it when companies monopolize the competition, with collusion from weak anti-trust laws or weak enforcement (recall how the Bush administration dropped the ball on the Microsoft lawsuit?), driving up prices too far above competitive market prices? Whatever we call it, it bears no relation to high-seas piracy.

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Strange that the headline that lead me to this story was "Venezuela's Pirate Government", but when I get to the story I find that China is actually the biggest culprit in piracy and that both Brazil and Mexico rank above Venezuela in piracy.

Is the Post employee in charge of anti-Venezuela propaganda (that is, the equivalent to Judith Miller in the Iraq propaganda section) simply writing headlines at random for any article which mentions Venezuela even tangentially, or is this another paid propaganda project of the Bush Administration?

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This is an amazingly irresponsable piece of "journalism." The headline tags Venezuela as a pirate state, although the article focuses on the leading pirate states (according to our State Department report relied upon by the author): China, Brazil and Mexico. Indeed, the author disclaims any knowledge as to the amount or extent of Venezuelan piracy, allowing as how he hasn't even read our State Department's information on Venezuela. All he does is trash the "populist" policies of the Chavez administration -- policies which have in fact, for the first time in Venezuelan history, channelled substantial amounts of Venezuelan government-owned oil revenues to health, education and housing programs for the majority of Venezuelans who are poor. I wish the Post would stop supporting sleazy hatchet jobs on "populist" governments unpopular with our imperial Government, and start acting like the fine newspaper the Post once was.

This is an amazingly irresponsable piece of "journalism." The headline tags Venezuela as a pirate state, although the article focuses on the leading pirate states (according to our State Department report relied upon by the author): China, Brazil and Mexico. Indeed, the author disclaims any knowledge as to the amount or extent of Venezuelan piracy, allowing as how he hasn't even read our State Department's information on Venezuela. All he does is trash the "populist" policies of the Chavez administration -- policies which have in fact, for the first time in Venezuelan history, channelled substantial amounts of Venezuelan government-owned oil revenues to health, education and housing programs for the majority of Venezuelans who are poor. I wish the Post would stop supporting sleazy hatchet jobs on "populist" governments unpopular with imperial Government, and start acting like the fine newspaper the Post once was.

I worried about the poverty.

Wow, way to write a headline pointing fingers at Venezuelans, only to barely address them at the end of the whole article.

This piece is total trash. Piracy's never going away. As long as the technology exists to copy media, there will always be someone to do it. Stop crying, get over it. The media companies whine incessantly as their profits grow every year.

From Mr. Martinez' last paragraph: "I shall have to read the US Trade Representative’s report to learn how much money is lost to piracy in Venezuela's major cities."

You wrote your entire article without even bothering to read the Venezuela section of the report? Man, the press coverage of Venezuela is generally sloppy, but this one goes down for the books. Congratulations!

Guau¡¡¡

There's more to this problem than meets the eye, though, Ibsen.

Certainly, protecting intellectual property is a major priority for big technology-producing countries, no doubt about it. From the developing world's point of view, it amounts to a net transfer of resources from poor, technology-using countries to rich, technology producing countries. That's the law, alright, but is the law fair?

Ha-Joon Chang wrote a fascinating book that touches on this that I heartily recommend: Kicking Away The Ladder, it's called. In it, he documents the way the Now Developed Countries typically had much weaker Intellectual Property Protection laws back when they were developing countries than the ones they now demand from today's developing countries. The reason is straightforward - they rightly perceived that appropriating cutting-edge technologies as fast as possible would be crucial to their development prospects. Only once they themselves became net exporters of I.P.R. protected goods did they have a "change of heart" and start demanding strong I.P.R. protection from poor countries.

It's a story that goes right back to the XVIIIth century, when the British government actually financed the deployment of industrial spies in Belgium to "steal" cutting edge textile technology. It includes stories like that of Switzerland, which spent most of the 19th century without any patent system at all, precisely because they realized that it would retard take-up of cutting edge technologies by Swiss companies. And runs straight up through the latest wave of New Industrialized Economies in East Asia, which made reverse engineering and technology transfer key planks of their development strategies.

So the question arises: is the demand for strong IPR protection really just a ploy by the now developed countries to keep their technological edge over peripheral economies? And if so, don't countries like China and Mexico have something like a duty to skirt existing laws, if that will help lift more of their populations out of poverty more quickly?

There are some hairy questions involved in this whole debate. The fact that the holders of today's technologies do what they can to extend their monopoly power over what they've invented is neither really surprising nor really relevant to this debate. If I'm the leader of Mexico, and my choice is between fattening Microsoft's bank account even further or helping my domestic producers compete successfully in international markets, well...it looks rather different, this debate, from that point of view.

I guess my feeling is that the term "pirate" is too emotionally loaded to really serve as a guide here. It forestalls the possibility of a deeper consideration of the interests at stake.

Why not "Endogenous Technology Appropriation Agents", instead?

Do grab that H.J. Chang book, though: you'll like it.

First off, that study was funded using OUR TAX DOLLARS paid to a company that is financially dependant on folks like RIAA. If that isn’t biased reporting, I don’t know what is.

Second, if anyone in the industry thinks that passing laws about it, or otherwise cracking down on it by continuing to sue 12-year olds, they are more delusional than first thought.

Not only will Piracy thrive into the future, but there is nothing that can be done about it until the industry stops producing crap and expecting us all to pay to go see it… Only to be very disappointed and wanting our money back from the theatre.

Most downloader’s I know will go to the theatre to see the movie if it looks good enough on their laptops for free…. Or will buy the song through iTunes.

A very intriguing piece!