Phnom Penh (dpa) - Cambodia would begin raids on shops suspected of selling pirated movie DVDs and music CDs, a senior official warned Monday.
The South-East Asian nation has become well-known among travellers for its thousands of shops offering dirt-cheap pirated copies of the latest international movies and music, which often hit the stalls before they are in general release overseas.
"The ministry will implement measures imminently to stop the sale of pirated CDs and DVDs to protect the intellectual property of their writers and producers," said Tauch Sarou, undersecretary of state for the Culture Ministry.
"But the ministry alone cannot stop this, so we will cooperate with police and the vendors themselves to stamp the problem out," Sarou said. "It isn't going to stop overnight, but we need the sellers to understand the issue and why we must do this. We will not stop until they do."
The ministry called a meeting of bootleg vendors Friday to warn them of the new crackdown, and police said Monday that they were prepared for the raids.
Cambodia's bootleggers enjoyed impunity for years, but the country was accepted as a member by the World Trade Organization in 2003 and the body has given it until 2013 to comply with regulations.
A vendor from Prey Nokor CD near the capital's Central Market said Monday that she understood intellectual property rights well but that sellers found themselves in a catch-22 situation.
On the one hand, nobody imports original work to Cambodia, and on the other, the 2-dollar-per-disk cost for pirated copies prices the genuine articles out of the market, said the vendor who declined to be named.
"However, I will stop if the law is enforced because I know artists have rights even though it will kill my business," she said.
The South-East Asian nation has become well-known among travellers for its thousands of shops offering dirt-cheap pirated copies of the latest international movies and music, which often hit the stalls before they are in general release overseas.
"The ministry will implement measures imminently to stop the sale of pirated CDs and DVDs to protect the intellectual property of their writers and producers," said Tauch Sarou, undersecretary of state for the Culture Ministry.
"But the ministry alone cannot stop this, so we will cooperate with police and the vendors themselves to stamp the problem out," Sarou said. "It isn't going to stop overnight, but we need the sellers to understand the issue and why we must do this. We will not stop until they do."
The ministry called a meeting of bootleg vendors Friday to warn them of the new crackdown, and police said Monday that they were prepared for the raids.
Cambodia's bootleggers enjoyed impunity for years, but the country was accepted as a member by the World Trade Organization in 2003 and the body has given it until 2013 to comply with regulations.
A vendor from Prey Nokor CD near the capital's Central Market said Monday that she understood intellectual property rights well but that sellers found themselves in a catch-22 situation.
On the one hand, nobody imports original work to Cambodia, and on the other, the 2-dollar-per-disk cost for pirated copies prices the genuine articles out of the market, said the vendor who declined to be named.
"However, I will stop if the law is enforced because I know artists have rights even though it will kill my business," she said.
1 comment:
Why ... force Cambodia.. to go back in the 80s?
Without pirate's softwares... how many companies in our Country could afford to pay a high price of Microsoft product? I think it's not the country like Cambodia can bother big softwares companies..
Go to catch China first...
They counterfeit almost everything.
Companies in Cambodia are not ready
to pay a high price for a product like Windows Vista, Adobe, Macromedia, etc...
This is the only way that police make money again. How can you catch a big seller like CD World.. the one near Peace Book Center..
Someone is backing them.
Why duties officers (Khoy) make a lots of candies every year..??
and cambodians are still poor.
The answers are briberies and corruptions.
First take out, Hok Lun Dy????
Khmer Canadian
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