THEFT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (IP) IS STILL CRIME Several years ago, some travelers intending to visit a certain country in the western world liked to read some books (such as maps, language-to-language dictionaries, etc.) to equip themselves with a knowledge of the city they are visiting. Amongst these reference tools was a book that explained that the busiest airport of the city attracts not only travelers but thieves as well in their drones preying on these tourists. It explained that the airport buildings are particularly very clean and the internal spaces used by the public in those buildings are very well furnished. The book warned that this snobbish atmosphere presents a wrong impression to many international visitors that the airport cannot harbor thieves. The book explained the many ways by which the thieves operate. This warning can be extrapolated to intellectual property (IP) today which stands very vulnerable to thieves who are now much more sophisticated in education, skills and life-style (in fact more well-dressed) than before. But whether smelling of coal dust or expensive perfumes, theft is still theft despite the look of the criminal performing it and despite the environment. This is so as a thief is a person who commits theft. Theft is “… the action or crime of stealing” ( Oxford Dictionary of English, Second Edition. Oxford University Press; Oxford, 2005. 1828) while the verb to “steal”, the stem of the noun “ stealing”, is said to mean to “take (another person’s property) without permission or legal right and without intending to return it..” (Oxford Dictionary of English. 1730.) Of course, the consequence of stealing is to deny the true owner the rightful ownership and access to the stolen property. This is what happens in all situations when intellectual property is stolen. The true owners lose a lot of wealth or facilitation for creating that wealth. The stealing of intellectual property does not differ from bank fraud which is punishable in law. A registrar of copyright in a country was once shocked when his minister rebuked him for leading an anti- counterfeits squad that stormed some notorious shops to confiscate and burn copyright counterfeits because the minister reasoned that the making of “copies” created jobs. It is the balancing between creating of jobs for criminals and the cost of jobs of hardworking intellectual property creators and owners that should make humans tick. We should learn from very conspicuous efforts of government agencies in combating theft of IP such as the creation by the UK government and the noble work of the Police Intellectual Property (IP) Crime Unit PIPCU. Read More about PIPCU: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Intellectual_Property_Crime_Unit
Posted on: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 07:12:26 +0000
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