Bulgaria Interior to Crack Down on Internet Piracy Investors

Bulgarian authorities will go after investors in Internet piracy rather than home Internet users in an effort to combat intellectual property crimes. Photo by BGNES/ EPA

Bulgarian Interior Ministry and the Unit for Combating Organized Crime (GDBOP) have vowed to crack down on those who invest in the distribution of Internet piracy in Bulgaria.

“We will not spy on the Bulgarian citizens. Bulgarians are prepared to pay for intellectual property. In fact they do pay now for intellectual property rights but their money goes into the organized crime network.

Bulgarian police will work to restrict the activity of those who invest in Internet piracy. We will not be surveying Internet users. Instead we'll be inspecting those who have put their money in Internet piracy and expect revenues from that investment. We are aware that Internet users are not to blame for the thriving of intellectual piracy,” said Wednesday for Darik news, the head of the Computer Crimes Department Yavor Kolev.

The Bulgarian Association of Music Producers and Bulgaria's Internet society seem to agree with the new course of action of the Bulgarian authorities.

The head of the Bulgarian Music Producers Association Bobi Ivanchev explained that his company holds the digital rights for the songs of Bulgaria's Eurovision 2010 finalist Miro. “Yet in the last three weeks Mikro's new album has been downloaded from the net 45 000 times and the company could not registered any gains.”

Dimitar Dinchev, secretary general of the Bulgarian Internet Society, on the other hand, said Wednesday that it was all too logical for the Bulgaria's Interior Ministry to slam on Internet piracy investors as “it is practically impossible to survey all Internet users and the music and the films they download.”

Bulgaria ranks first in the European Union by internet piracy, according to the European Director of the International Recording Federation, Frances Moore.

Moore met Tuesday with Bulgaria’s Interior Minister, Tsvetanov Tsvetanov, for the signing of a memorandum for copyrights protection between the Interior, the Federation and the Business Software Alliance.

Meanwhile, the European Commission points out that since 2008 until now, 100 000 jobs have been lost over intellectual property piracy and if the trend is to continue, this number will reach 1.2 million by 2015.

Data, presented at the meeting, shows that over 60% of the software in Bulgaria is illegal compared to 35% on average in Europe.

Moore also said that Bulgaria cannot develop a normal musical industry market over the lack of laws to stop internet piracy.

The meeting participants asked Tsvetanov to consider measures such as internet providers monitoring the users and fining violators after 2 warnings.

The Minister replied that such measures are going to be discussed at round tables and public forums in order to reach consensus in the society while police employees, from all over Bulgaria, will be trained to deal with copyright crimes.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!