Dmitry Medvedev’s speech at the forum:
Good afternoon, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. Of course, I would first like to wish you good discussions and informative speeches. Certainly, the discussion agenda is important for every country, including Russia. We had started creating an open market fairly recently, 20 years ago. This process has some exciting aspects and some obvious drawbacks.
But at any rate, Russia is now fully involved in the global economy, and it is interested in the broadest possible and most detailed discussion regarding the regulation of intellectual property and efforts to combat the spread of counterfeit and sub-standard products.
Of course, creative work ensures modern economic competitiveness. These creative endeavours should be adequately protected and, of course, rewarded. Naturally, the institute of intellectual property should develop worldwide. Intellectual property is, in effect, a monopoly, and this monopoly is a highly important means for turning non-material assets into highly popular market goods and services. Consequently, intellectual property creates added value and serves as an economic growth incentive. On the one hand, the state and civil society should ensure the legal protection of intellectual property. On the other hand, they should promote competition and eliminate unjustified market barriers. How to combine these is probably the most difficult objective in the modern world. Efficient legal protection of intellectual property is very important for the introduction of new innovative products. There are periods when these innovative products can be used to acquire new competitive advantages, but on the other hand, they can also be used to prevent rival companies gaining entry into the market. Creating a reasonable balance is the task of government policy and government decisions.
The system of ensuring the safety of products and their production processes should meet modern requirements. This includes a responsible attitude on the part not only of businesses but also consumers (people usually forget about this in everyday life), as well as the active role of public associations and, of course, efficient and coordinated activities of law-enforcement and supervision agencies.
Our common task is to promote the development of a rational consumption model. I would like to point out that people in any country should understand that when they buy products from sources of questionable origin they not only risk their own health and support illegal producers, but they actually jeopardise the entire system of the production of quality goods, in which considerable human and intellectual effort is invested. This of course leads to unfair competition, a reduction of investment and ultimately lowers the quality of life in the country.
We will have to address this goal in fundamentally new conditions: we have joined the World Trade Organisation and created a Eurasian integration association. I have said more than once that the WTO is nothing to be afraid of but neither should it be idealised. It is not a cure-all but a set of instruments, which we should use wisely, in particular in order to make our market more transparent and civilised. During the WTO accession negotiations, our country assumed a number of obligations on the use of intellectual property. The basic provision was that this should meet our national interests, but it was also an important signal to our foreign partners that we intend to continue working to develop modern civilised relations in this field.
On the other hand, we are creating the legal basis of the Customs Union and accumulating law-enforcement experience. The customs bodies of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan have been set the task of protecting intellectual property rights. We are acting on the basis of the provision according to which customs bodies may suspend the production of suspect goods, including those that are not on the national registers or the Common Customs Register of Intellectual Property Rights of the Customs Union Member States. I hope that the business people of our countries, our partners in Belarus and Kazakhstan will actively contribute to the discussions of how to improve these mechanisms, which are only now being created and will obviously pose many problems.
One more issue which I would like to mention is very important in view of the globalised information space. It has to do with the protection of intellectual property rights on the Internet; I spoke about it at high-profile venues such as the G8 and the G20, as well as other forums. It's clear that we need to formulate new regulation procedures that would ensure broader access to knowledge, information, research and educational resources, cultural values and other elements protected by copyright. But there has not been any progress in this sphere so far, which makes things complicated, especially considering the number of people producing copyrighted material on the Internet. Nearly half of the country’s population uses the Internet and this figure is even higher in other, European, countries. And this is clearly a growing trend.
A key task is to find a balance between freedom and regulation in the information space and expanding the rights of right-holders, while at the same time specifying the limitations of the legal use of intellectual property on the Internet. The struggle against copyright violations and related rights cannot be effective without a clear regulation of these relations, and without spreading responsibility, in particular to information brokers.
Judicial protection is a very important element and, certainly, the most effective method of protecting copyrights and the legal rights and interests of individuals and organisations. The federal targeted programme The Development of the Judicial System in Russia for 2013-2020 has been approved by a Government resolution, with a view to improving this system. Considering the subject of our meeting, we could think about expanding the measures stipulated in this programme and analyse the structure of the judicial machinery and areas of judicial practice. In particular, we could consider the establishment of specialised courts and define their jurisdiction. I’d like to remind you that a copyright court is to be established within the system of commercial disputes courts by February 1, 2013. I know that debates are underway in the expert and legal communities on the possible competence and jurisdiction of such a court. I hope that the participants in this forum will formulate practical proposals that would help us increase the efficiency of this mechanism.
It is important for any country, but especially for Russia, to enhance revenues from the use of intellectual property created with the Government’s participation. In order to achieve this goal, we should act based on the idea that the right to intellectual property shall belong to the copyright holder and shall be returned to the author only if the holder does not use it. A similar mechanism is stipulated in the new wording of the Civil Code. Its approval would create a situation in which the copyright holder, who definitely knows the specifics of some particular intellectual property better than anyone else, will ensure its rapid commercialisation, rather than sitting on his hands, as the Government sometimes does. If the Government does not show any interest in this property for some reason, this competence will be transferred to the copyright holder. At the same time, this mechanism could become an instrument for monitoring the efficiency of budgetary spending.
I would also like to express my gratitude to the forum organisers. I believe it is very important that the forum is being attended by so many experts, and that it will last several days. We could consider holding this forum every year, because there are certainly enough issues that we need to address. It could be held alternately in the other member countries of the Customs Union, or other countries. I hope that our partners will support this initiative. There is one more proposal we need to discuss. I know that a Charter of Honest Consumers has been drafted in time for this meeting. To support these good undertakings… I’d like to say that I wholeheartedly share the goals of that charter and would gladly join it, which is why I am clicking on the corresponding icon. Thank you.
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After stating that he was joining the International Charter of Honest Consumers Against Counterfeit Products and Copyright Violations, Medvedev clicked the symbolic icon on the sensor monitor to confirm his allegiance to the Charter.
The Prime Minister has become the 1,250th person to join the Charter.
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Dmitry Medvedev’s closing remarks:
I would set aside for the moment the issue of protecting intellectual property, to focus instead on another priority issue: what will the WTO membership do for Russia? I am doing this because so far no one has given a direct answer to this. I understand that our guests have their reasons to refrain from commentary. What I would like to say is that, first of all, no one has ever promised total bliss once Russia joins the WTO. I have repeated many times that the WTO is a tool, albeit a very important one. It is a set of rules. Two hundred years ago it was quite possible to live, trade and grow without the WTO, but only because things worked on a smaller scale then, there was less international contact and people therefore did not need any common rules. However, we do need them now, and the fact that Russia has joined that organisation simply serves as an entry ticket to a club whose members have decided to adhere to specific rules. Does that give any established benefits? No. There will obviously be some downside to this as well. However, on a global scale, we will certainly benefit with time, simply because we will harmonise our institutions with the way similar institutions operate in other countries. This is obviously a plus, because we still have a lot to learn, and there are countries and regimes we might want to use as models in this respect. Therefore, frankly, I think that we are more likely to see some results five or ten years from now.
As for the issue of intellectual property rights, I think we have made significant progress in this field. I used to engage with this problem as part of my professional activities.
Our current situation is, of course, different from the 1990s. At the same time, it is far from ideal. Seriously, though, we are ready to hear proposals from our colleagues (I have looked at one from the International Chamber of Commerce), and from various anti-counterfeiting groups. Here is a set of recommendations from one of our colleagues. They are actually almost identical with our understanding of what needs to be done: improve law enforcement, or as they put it, to seal enforcement procedures, to improve administrative legal proceedings and administrative punishment, fight online piracy, and change the criminal legislation and procedure as necessary. These are possible legal measures.
At the same time, I must admit that assessments of these kinds of offences are rarely unbiased. I have spent a lot of time discussing Russia’s entry to the World Trade Organisation with my colleagues, and I remember some of the partners telling me – without mentioning any names, naturally – some of our neighbours have already joined the WTO and now their intellectual property laws are so perfect that they haven’t seen a single violation ever since. I could do nothing but smile in response. Yet, I have heard this on more than one occasion, so it is very important to find out why violations occur.
I opened Yandex search as we were talking and typed “download free music.” The search returned 122 million hits – 122 million ways to download music free of charge and without registering. The same is true of Google in English, although I didn’t find statistics, but I can tell there were as many. What does this mean? It means we are only just beginning to understand how to regulate relations in the rapidly changing information space. We certainly need to protect intellectual property, such as music, using conventional means. But we must also think of the future because we understand how much copyright protection and the music industry have changed over the past three to five years. Many companies that produce CDs or DVDs no longer make a profit, not because there are so many pirates, but because many people prefer free downloads. We must take this into consideration as we try to work out effective regulatory measures. If you ask me what kind of measures, well, I don’t know exactly. We must think about it. These measures have to be developed through international consultation, as a result of agreement between the producers, consumers and governments that regulate this market. Unfortunately, I have not seen much interest in this when I raised this issue, as I told you. I raised this issue at the G8 and G20 meetings, but I can’t say my audience showed much concern. This, I think, is an unfortunate attitude because this is a serious problem.
So why do people violate copyrights? First, because they have no fear of punishment and no feeling they are committing a crime. But let me remind you that there was a time – in the Middle Ages – when killing wasn’t seen as something far out of the ordinary either, yet today, it is a grave crime. So, the first reason is impunity. And second, pirated content can be obtained free of charge for a token sum, so there you have the second reason, simple as that. This is a difficult problem, and solving it will require a lot of effort. I think that meetings such as this forum make a modest but valuable contribution to the process. It is important to talk, important to be in touch with all those involved in these relations. Russia as well as the other member states of the Common Economic Space are ready for this. So I would like to wish everybody successful work, and see you next time. Thank you.