Yes, there still be pirates!
Thursday, May 12, 2005 at 6:03PM ■"In Russia, Politicians Protect Movie, Music Pirates," by Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal, 12 May 2005, p. B1.
■"The Pirate Kingdom," op-ed by Pat Choate, New York Times, 12 May 2005, p. A27.
Two points I raise on this sort of pirating, which is indeed happening like crazy in both Russia and China (I can't count how many times Chinese street peddlers accosted me in their attempts to sell "one dolla" DVDs of movies just out in U.S. theaters that same day):
1) Russia may have politicians protecting such stuff for the usual private gain, but let's not forget that America routinely invents these sorts of copying technologies, even sometimes wrapping them up in new companies like Napster in its original form. So let's not be too hypocritical about that which we ourselves sow.
2) With both countries, their level of maturity on this score is akin to late 19th century America, which also was rife with counterfeiting and intellectual theft. Remember the phrase, "frontier justice"? That was far too often the state of our legal and regulatory enforcement systems at that point in our history. We cleaned up a lot once we started personal income taxes to generate the bulk of our federal in-flow instead of trying to tax business for the bulk. Both Russia and China still try to generate the bulk of their tax revenue by taxing companies, not people. Both would be better off with personal income tax systems closer to ours and lotsa lawyers. The latter is the key difference. Show me a country with lotsa lawyers with real playing clout and I'll show you a country where pirating is a lot riskier business.
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