Unauthorised copying and farm subsidies
The San Francisco Chronicle carries an interesting article linking rich-country farm subsidies and developing countries’ inaction towards (or resistance to) “anti-piracy” measures.
The push to get rid of agricultural subsidies is linked, in the minds of poor countries, to any expansion in exports from Hollywood and Silicon Valley. The leaders of poorer countries of the world are offering a grand bargain that would be of immense value to California’s producers of “intellectual property.” The poor countries want a clear path to dominate agriculture, while supporting the expansion drive by Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
This dependency is an important point. Yet the author misses a point: Developing countries’ governments usually do not refuse to control unauthorised copying (let’s keep the term “piracy” reserved to robberies on the high seas, where it belongs) out of defiance, but rather because they see little point in acting against it.
Why should they waste their scarce resources on protecting and enlarging the wealth of some of the world’s richest companies, when they don’t have enough to feed their own citizens? Especially if the governments to which these companies are connected keep poor countries firmly on the losing side of world trade?