Movie Piracy in Ukraine: National Resistance to International IP Governance

• In Event: Rethinking Global Film Practices: New Perspectives, Resistance and Empirical Research

Abstract

Allegedly home to many of the world’s largest BitTorrent sites, Ukraine has been accused of ‘export[ing] piracy’. A 2010 US-Ukraine Action Plan to improve enforcement against digital and hard copy piracy was never implemented, and as the Law on Telecommunications does not impose liability on ISPs, responses to takedown notices are low. Illicit camcording has been identified as the key source of illegally recorded films but proposed reforms to exclude the private copy exception from the Copyright Law have not been enacted. Under the Law of Cinematography, the requirement that all film prints be locally produced has also been identified as enabling another source. While these conditions might be read as a series of ‘failures’ to comply with effective IP standards, the paper argues the Ukrainian government’s inaction on combating the conditions facilitating movie piracy might be read as organized state resistance to US governance of global anti-piracy enforcement.

Paul McDonald is Professor and Head of Department for Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. This paper builds on his article ‘Hollywood, the MPAA, and the Formation of Antipiracy Policy,’ recently published in the International Journal of Cultural Policy. His books include Video and DVD Industries (BFI Publications 2007) and co-editing of Hollywood and the Law (BFI Publications 2015) and The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry (Wiley-Blackwell 2008). Since 2002 he has co-edited the International Screen Industries series published by the British Film Institute.

Author

• Paul McDonald, King's College London