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Peru’s government talks up web-blocking and IFPI alliance in bid to get off US piracy watch list
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 28 February 2022
The government in Peru has told the office of the US Trade Representative that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry as part of wide-ranging efforts to crack down on intellectual property infringement in the country.
The USTR reviews intellectual property issues around the world each year so that it can put pressure on those countries not doing enough to protect the interests of America’s music, movie and other IP-based industries. There are two key documents published each year as part of that work.
The Notorious Markets report – the latest edition of which was published earlier this month – identifies specific websites and real-work marketplaces that prolifically facilitate IP infringement. And then there’s the Special 301 review which publishes a watch list of countries which – US copyright owners and officials reckon – have work to do to crackdown on piracy within their jurisdictions.
Peru regularly features in that watch list, though it is hoping that its ongoing efforts to crack down on IP infringement – including copyright infringement – might stop that from happening. To that end, the country’s institute for the protection of intellectual property, known as INDECOPI, recently sent a document to the USTR – which has been published by Torrentfreak – outlining all its pro-IP activities.
And in that document, INDECOPI says that it recently signed “a memorandum of understanding with IFPI to implement joint cooperation mechanisms, particularly regarding training [and] exchange of information for the detection, in the digital environment, of websites, as well as mobile and desktop applications, through which are carried out – or contribute to – allegedly infringing acts”.
Fans of music industry piracy griping will know that stream-ripping sites – which allow people to grab permanent downloads of temporary streams – have been a top gripe for record labels and music publishers for some time now. Meanwhile, when it comes to anti-piracy tactics, a preferred method is web-blocking, where internet service providers are ordered to block people from accessing infringing websites.
So, with that in mind, presumably INDECOPI’s new mates at IFPI are pleased to know that the institute’s copyright commission has recently instigated web-blocks against ten stream-ripping sites in the country.
And, the institute says in its submission to the USTR: “INDECOPI will continue monitoring and surveillance in the digital environment of suspected piracy sites for the year 2022 and will take the corresponding actions to block illegal sites”.
Good times. Whether all this – and other activity around trademarks and such like – will help Peru get itself taken off the USTR’s watch list remains to be seen.
Though, as is sometimes the case, in a bid to placate the Americans, Peru has embraced things like web-blocking, a useful anti-piracy mechanism that isn’t generally available to copyright owners in the US itself, because of controversies ten years ago when a web-block law was first proposed there. So that’s fun.
