(Only for public, not for personal use)

A small scale piracy campaign has been initiated in 2003 in Novi Sad, at the workshop that gathered members of Critical Art Ensemble (www.critical-art.net), young activist from Novi Sad and members of kuda.org, in order to address the raising problem of copyright law enforcement in Serbia and the Balkan region.

Several actions were realized, including production of pirated movie CDs and their free re-distribution, street action and production of the video documentation, as well as series of interviews that were realized in last year.

"Catch Us! If You Can" is video documentation of street action that took place in Novi Sad and it consists of statements and interviews made with ex-dealers of pirated CDs/DVDs, citizens of Novi Sad, some actors of legal bodies and decision makers, as well as with international activists about very pushy and inappropriate copyright law, which forbids any kind of a piracy as illegal way of copying, exchanging and selling of copied files. Starting point of the street action was distribution of hundred DivXs, "new and improved" version of one of blockbuster movies in that period, "Catch me if you can" by Stephen Spielberg. Movie was "improved" by extra titling the movie, as a kind of reaction on usual copyright sentence: "This DVD is for screening purposes only and it is not for Public Presentation" which showed up many times in the movie. Extra titles were added in many places in the movie and some of them are:

- "Catch Me If You Can was produced for $ 50 million and has already made 160 million. Expect millions more to be made when realized to video and cable.
- You are under economic and cultural attack.
- This DivX has been created for public use and not for private interests!
- The appropriation of digital information is a form of cultural self-defense.
- The production and distribution of digital information should not be centrally controlled.
- Copyright is cultural imperialism!
- Access for all is a requirement for world democracy!"

The law against piracy was passed in April 2003 as one of direct consequences of government action after assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. New laws against terrorism were passed and piracy fell in category of criminal acts. Law against piracy is on and it's very cruel: person could get from 5 to 8 years in prison for copying, redistributing and unauthorized public presentation of some copyrighted piece. A thousand of CD shops are now closed, street dealers cannot sell pirate CD's anymore and some people got arrested because of this illegal action. Still, piracy industry is live and vivid, and it's functioning through not so visible channels. Somewhere between government's urge for fast and visible political earnings and adaptation to standards and legislative of European Union markets, Serbian law against piracy exists as completely inadequate and premature step that devastates already poor information distribution.

During years, intellectual property protection is slowly but certainly moving its focus from interest of authors to the economic interest of intellectual property carriers. The crucial point is decision of industry interest to redefine intellectual property as a trade question. This has continued through a trend of the introduction of intellectual property issue to GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and agreement on the intellectual property provisions called TRIPS (Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights). It became clear that all this is really about promoting greater intellectual property rights for owners. The piece of it that is missing usually is the recognition that intellectual property has always been viewed as a balance - it's not just owners, it's owners and the public. Important thing is that intellectual property should be treated differently then the real property. Unfortunately, this difference is often neglected by authorities who more and more put equality sign between P2P users and criminals. (1)

In past decade, great number of law enforcements are brought in a form of very powerful legal instruments ranging from, for example, "The Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive" which collects the hardest investigative mechanisms from the different countries in Europe and integrate them and impose that standard in every EU jurisdiction, to acts like "Minerva Order" is that allows the copyright owner to freeze bank accounts of people that are copyright infringers. Process of European Union integration on the May the 1st 2004 is the great example of interest and conflict lead politics. The copyright industry has claimed that some East European countries have an economic interest in copyright infringement (there is fairly significant unauthorized CD and DVD production in Bulgaria and Poland) and they do not have the will to enforce IP laws that will be damaging to them economically. That was the excuse for the EU to finish new intellectual property directive by accession time, so that East European countries won't have an opportunity to participate in its design. (2)

Video documentation
Title: Catch Us! If You Can (Only for public, not for personal use)
Duration: 11 min
Format: DivX
September 2003

The interviews
(1) from the interview with Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (USA)
(2) from the interview with Alan Toner, a Fellow in the Information Law Institute in New York University
Interview with Armin Medosch (AT/UK), writer, curator and media artist
Interview with Nemanja Kovacic, Board member of Antypiracy Association of Serbia and Montenegro and the owner of the chain of video clubs "Pirana" in Novi Sad