US embassy cable - 05MINSK922

UNCLAS MINSK 000922 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EB/IPE 
DEPT PLEASE PASS TO USTR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON, ETRD, KIPR, BO 
SUBJECT: Belarus IPR Update 
 
1. (SBU) Summary: A Belarusian state agency "protects" 
musicians' copyrights by collecting royalties on their 
behalf from all Belarusian restaurants, radio stations, 
clubs and bars.  This agency recently muscled in on the 
local cable TV market, with the effect of stopping payments 
to many foreign cable channels being broadcast in Belarus. 
The head of the Belarusian Guild of Playwrights and 
Screenwriters described how the Ministry of Culture promotes 
the production of foreign plays, without receiving 
permission or paying royalties to the plays' authors.  Last, 
the Ministry of Interior announced a rare IPR enforcement 
action against two manufacturers of pirated CDs.  End 
summary. 
 
 
BAA, Quite the Racket 
--------------------- 
 
2. (U) Econ Chief met with Nikolay Chisty, Director of the 
Belarusian Author's Association (BAA), on July 20.  The BAA 
is a Belarusian governmental organization created three 
years ago to protect IPR.  BAA registers copyrights and 
collects royalties, while the GOB's National Center for 
Intellectual Property Rights drafts legislation. 
 
3. (U) BAA mostly works to protect the rights of musicians. 
BAA has signed mandatory agreements with all Belarusian 
musicians to manage their copyrights.  They have also signed 
agreements with a number of other countries, including 
Russia, the UK, Greece, Spain and Belgium.  BAA recently 
signed an agreement to protect musicians represented by the 
U.S. agency BMI, but this has not yet been implemented.  BAA 
also signed mandatory agreements with all restaurants, bars, 
clubs and radio stations in Belarus to collect royalties 
when they play music publicly (the one exception being the 
caf next to BAA's office, which got around this by only 
playing French music; BAA has no agreement with France). 
 
4. (SBU) If these venues collect a cover charge, BAA gets 
five percent of the cover proceeds.  If not, BAA collects 
its fees based on square meterage of the venue.  They also 
collect one percent of all revenue from radio stations. 
BAA, keeping 15 percent for itself, then distributes these 
royalties to the Belarusian and foreign bands it represents, 
based on the bands' relative popularity, recalculated 
weekly.  Chisty stated many Belarusian musicians have 
complained about how little money they receive, but Chisty 
argued they received no money previously in such royalties. 
BAA explored charging taxi cabs a percentage because they 
play music while driving, but decided it would be too hard 
to enforce.  [Note: a number of Belarus' most popular bands 
are blacklisted by the government for playing at a pro- 
democracy concert in 2004.  They receive no royalties from 
BAA.] 
 
5. (SBU) BAA recently expanded its activities to the cable 
TV market.  Chisty explained previously Belarusian cable 
providers contracted directly with foreign TV companies to 
broadcast their channels.  In July BAA brought Belarus' 
cable companies to court and forced them to pay their 
foreign partners through the BAA.  However, Chisty admitted 
BAA can only send money abroad if a foreign channel has an 
agreement with BAA.  So far very few foreign channels have 
such agreements, so BAA keeps this revenue.  [Comment: In an 
exampe Chisty gave, Belarus' Kosmos TV used to pay CNN 
directly for broadcast rights in Belarus.  Now Komos pays 
BAA for the right to broadcast CNN.  Howver, as CNN has no 
agreement with BAA, BAA keeps the money.] 
 
6. (SBU) Despite its name, Chisty said BAA does nothing to 
protect the rights of print authors.  There is also no GOB 
agency charged with combating movie piracy.  When asked, 
Chisty replied a foreign film studio's only recourse if its 
movies were being sold or shown illegally in Belarus would 
be to appeal to the courts.  BAA is now considering 
expanding to protect the works of Belarusian painters and 
photographers. 
 
 
Piracy in the Theater 
--------------------- 
 
7. (SBU) On August 2 Econ Chief met with Andrey Kureichik, 
playwright and president of the Belarusian Guild of 
Playwrights and Screenwriters (BGPS).  Kureichik requested 
the meeting to discuss IPR violations on the Belarusian 
stage.  According to Kureichik, Belarusian theaters never 
get permission from or pay royalties to foreign playwrights 
to stage their plays.  Because they do not pay for foreign 
plays, the theaters tell Belarusian playwrights they do not 
have to pay to stage Belarusian plays either. 
 
8. (SBU) Kureichik estimated two-thirds of all plays shown 
in Belarus are stolen from foreign authors.  About 60 
percent of those are American.  Moreover, with the exception 
of two small stages, the Ministry of Culture owns all 
theaters in Belarus, so the state is responsible for these 
IPR violations.  Kureichik estimated foreign playwrights are 
losing out on large sums of money.  Russia has forced 
Belarus to pay its dramatists.  To stage a Russian play, 
Belarusian theaters pay USD 2,000 plus nine percent of 
revenue (which is USD 2,000 to 3,000 a day, 25 days a month 
at Belarus' National Theater).  He added that Belarusian 
theaters also steal western movie scores -- he recently saw 
a Belarusian play scored with John William's Star Wars 
music, even though it was a love story -- and often change 
the stolen plays without seeking the author's permission. 
 
9. (SBU) Kureichik believes Belarusian theaters would like 
to comply with international norms and pay royalties, if 
only to preserve their reputations, but the Ministry of 
Culture will not let them pay.  BGPS appealed to BAA for 
help, but BAA claimed, as a government agency, they could 
not contradict the Ministry of Culture's position. 
Kureichik claimed the Ministry threatened to blacklist him 
if he keeps pushing this matter, and said the Ministry of 
Justice liquidated the BGPS this year because of its efforts 
to secure royalties. 
 
 
A Rare Enforcement 
------------------ 
 
10. (U) Belarus' Ministry of Interior announced August 4 it 
had raided two companies in Minsk involved in illegal 
copying of compact discs.  The MOI claims it seized 108,000 
CDs, 57 CD-writers, and a packaging machine.  These plants 
were suspected of having supplied a large consignment of 
pirated CDs to a German company.  The directors of the 
companies have been charged under Article 201 of the 
Belarusian Criminal Code, violations of copyright and allied 
rights.  Post attempted to get more details from the GOB but 
the National Center for Intellectual Property Rights told us 
they could not share any information and the MOI insisted 
the request be made via diplomatic note.  This is the first 
IPR enforcement the MOI has claimed in at least a year. 
 
KROL