Serbia and Montenegro: Who Mentioned Your Rights Anyway

03 May 2006

Under intensive pressure by the EU and the U.S., Serbia and Montenegro fully approximated its body of legislation in the field of copyright and associated rights� protection with European legislation. It endows the same legal status to the domestic authors with foreign counterparts anywhere in the world, including the length of protection and the rights to which an author is entitled.

The authors have exclusive rights to use or authorize others to use their works under preset terms and conditions. An author may allow or prohibit the copying of his/her work in all forms and shapes, the public performance of a work, recording, broadcasting on radio, cable or satellite, translations of a work in other languages, or other modifications.

The SCG National Bureau for Intellectual Property has licenced two collective organizations for protection of copyrights and associated rights - SOKOJ (Union of Organizations for Protection of Music Copyrights, with or without the lyrics) and OSPJ (organization that works in protection of makers of phonograms, recording media and permanent records). The Bureau is entitled to monitor their work and activities.

In reality, however, neither the two organizations nor the legislation function properly. Due to wide-spread piracy on all levels, International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) proposed that SCG is included in the list of monitored countries. This could result in placement of the U.S. black watch list of countries that don�t provide sufficient copyright protection. This, on the other hand, could mean some form of trade sanctions for Serbia and Montenegro.

Everything is pirated in SCG and everybody is involved in piracy. In response to the IIPA announcements, the Government of Serbia organized the public incineration of about 350,000 seized pirated discs in March of this year. On that occasion, the Minister of Trade Bojan Dimitrijevic himself admitted that he has purchased pirated films and music. The public incineration was intended to demonstrated Serbia�s readiness to fight the piracy, but street vendors continue to offer pirated copies of films and music on the streets of Belgrade and other cities. Books are copied en masse, and even the radio and TV stations download music over the p2p (peer-to-peer) networks. The cinemas are dying out due to shrinking audiences, while musicians have accepted the fact that public performances and �gigs� remain their only source of income.

According to IIPA, the music industry in SCG only has lost over 12 million Dollars last year, while piracy covers over 80 percent of the total markets. According to the data available to the SCG Anti-Piracy Agency, the state loses about 20 million EUR only from taxes lost to piracy.

The biggest problem is the fact that penalties for piracy, usually fines, are very lenient. According to the Government Commission for Fight Against Piracy, 1,011 cases of criminal charges were brought up against more than 1,000 people last year.

"Lamentably, our judicial practice shows that the declared sentences usually included probation sanctions and fines. The Police report that they have had to bring up charges against the same person for several times during the year, having in mind that piracy is a lucrative crime and results in enormous profits, much greater than the profits made in drugs trafficking�, says Zoran Djokic, Chairperson of the Commission.

SOKOJ collected a total of 1,200,000 EUR in royalties and fees last year. In comparison, Croatia which has half the population of Serbia collected 5 million EUR, in Romania nine and a half million EUR were collected, and in Hungary 12 million EUR. On the other hand, SOKOJ has lost much of its credibility, having in mind that its members claim that the collected money is not distributed properly. There was the case of a widely popular pop-singer, whose songs are aired constantly on TV stations around the country. He was informed by SOKOJ that his songs are played twice a week, and the royalties were paid following that criteria. When he attempted to speak in public about the inadequate protection at one conference, and he was beaten up.

When the Ministry of Finance started the campaign for obligatory issue of fiscal receipts in retail stores, a scandal errupted over the use of the slogan �Jedan poziv menja sve� (One call makes the difference), taken from the hit song by �Partibrejkers�, famous rock band. The members of the band protested in public, but that was allthey could do.

Under such circumstances, there is little talk of publishing under the Creative Commons, or other open licenses, for that matter, in Serbia. In a country in which the �copy-paste� approach is universal and the laws are not adhered to, the authors don�t feel particular need for alternative forms of copyright protection and regulation, since they will be violated in any case.

�There is an initiative for localization of Creative Commons solutions in Serbia, but the initiators are trying to design appropriate promotion, to avoid that the whole thing is reduced to a small group of friends that publish under CC licenses�, Branka Curcic, Programming Director of Novi Sad based kuda.org New Media Centre told OneWorld.

In addition to kuda.org, the initiative includes the people from Serbian Wikipedia and the Free software network.

Before the move the actual localization, these organizations intend to promote the Creative Commons licenses and to include the authors in the project, or at least get them interested in it. According to Branka Curcic, it remains at the level of intentions.

In the meantime, publication of free contents in Serbia and Montenegro remains reserved to individual initiatives and actions.