Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights on the Internet in Bulgaria

Abuse of intellectual property rights on the Internet in Bulgaria

Master Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the Degree

Master of Business Administration in Public Governance and Management

Submitted to Prof. Dr. Harvey Goldstein & Dr. Marta Sabou

Miroslav Emanoilov

1122002

Vienna, 27-05-2013

AFFIDAVIT

I hereby affirm that this Master’s Thesis represents my own written work and that I have used no sources and aids other than those indicated. All passages quoted from publications or para- phrased from these sources are properly cited and attributed.

The thesis was not submitted in the same or in a substantially similar version, not even partial- ly, to another examination board and was not published elsewhere.

27/05/2013 Date Signature

ABSTRACT

With the increasing role of information technology in many aspects of our everyday lives, there can be noticed a trend that it becomes a means through which some people con- duct unlawful acts and use it for criminal purposes. This is a widespread challenge faced by the whole world and Bulgaria is no exception to this. As a member state of the European Union Bulgaria has to meet high standards in combating the violations of intellectual property rights on the Internet, which is a very serious and major problem for the country. Not only proper legislation that adequately regulates relations in the information society is needed, but also its further effective implementation. Despite the efforts of Bulgaria’s government, however, this problem still remains to a large extent unsolved.

To examine the reasons behind this phenomenon we use a mixed method approach, combining both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Thus, by concentrating on and analyzing the underlying reasons behind the occurrence of online piracy and supporting them by statistical data on the matter, we manage to reach the key findings that prove that digital piracy indeed has reached extremely high levels in Bulgaria. However, it turns out that the financial losses because of the free online sharing are often exaggerated and sometimes it even brings secondary benefits to the authors. By critical assessment of the Bulgarian copyright legislation and the measures taken by the government, we see that it fails to balance between the interests of the public and the right holders. The insufficient law enforcement, on one hand, and the strong public opinion in favour of free file sharing, on the other, make the current situation even more complex. Based on the results of the analysis, however, we have

managed to draw several important recommendations and thus, hopefully, contribute with new ideas for the improvement of the situation.

Acknowledgements

For her contribution for the preparation of the present Master Thesis, special thanks have to be expressed to Miss Alexandrina Banusheva, for her help in the research carried and for obtaining valuable information and data. Special thanks have to be expressed also to Prof. Dr. George Dimitrov, Albena Spassova, Prof. Dr. Violeta Tzakova and Dr. Nikolay Krushkov, for their willingness to share personal experience and opinion on the matter of intellectual property infringement.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Affidavit I

Abstract I

1 Introduction ...... 5 1.1 Research aims and objectives ...... 5 1.2 Structure of thesis ...... 6

2 Literature review ...... 9 2.1 Abuse of intellectual property rights on the Internet ...... 9 2.2 Intellectual property and monopoly ...... 14 2.3 Assessment ...... 16

3 Methodology ...... 17 3.1 Selection of research methods ...... 17 3.2 Qualitative methods ...... 19 3.3 Quantitative methods ...... 22

4 Torrent analysis ...... 24 4.1 Torrent portals in Bulgaria ...... 24 4.2 Popular torrent files ...... 30

5 Legislative issues ...... 33 5.1 Compensatory remuneration ...... 33 5.2 Liability ...... 35

6 Brief comparison with the EU...... 40

7 Discussion and conclusions ...... 44 7.1. Is online piracy the real threat in Bulgaria? ...... 44 7.2. Recommendations ...... 45 7.4. Summary ...... 54 7.5. Contribution to knowledge ...... 55

Bibliography: ...... 56

Appendices: ...... 61 Appendix 1: International treaties or acts on copyright and neighboring rights, to which Bulgaria is a party...... 61 Appendix 2: Interview questionnaire: ...... 63

III

Appendix 3: Development of a torrent file in Zamunda.net for a period 12 days ...... 64 Appendix 4: Price list of performers from ARA Music...... 65 Appendix 5: Table of the most popular posts against the campaign of bTV “FairPlay” (retrieved on 2013/04/02) ...... 66

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Difference between qualitative and quantitative research ...... 18

Table 2: List of interviewed experts on the matter of online piracy ...... 21

Table 3: Popular websites in Bulgaria for file sharing and downloading...... 25

Table 4: Number of new torrent files uploaded per day ...... 28

Table 5: Software piracy rates in the EU ...... 42

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Structure of the thesis ...... 8

Figure 2: Users’ rankings on Zamunda.net Source: Zamunda.net, Acquired on 01.03.2013 ..... 27

Figure 3: Screenshot of the torrent portal Zamunda.net ...... 29

Figure 4: Increase of the numbers of movie, music and software files for 10 days ...... 30

Figure 5: Activity of the torrent file The.Twilight.Saga.Breaking.Dawn.Part.2.2012.DVDRip.XviD- GECKOS.torrent on 2013-02-15 ...... 31

Figure 6: Activity of the torrent file The.Twilight.Saga.Breaking.Dawn.torrent for 2 weeks ...... 32

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1. Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights (LCNR) 2. Chief Directorate "Combating Organized Crime” (CDCOC) 3. European Union (EU) 4. Electronic Commerce Act (ECA) 5. National Statistical Institute (NSI)

IV ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

1 INTRODUCTION

Every creator of a product has the right to gain benefits from his work and investments. Every song writer, movie maker, artist, who spends a lot of time, effort and money in order to bring to the public a worthy and valuable product, needs to be able to gain back the money invested and to make a profit out of his or her talent. Their rights have to be protected in a way that nobody could be able to illegally obtain this product or distribute or broadcast it without the allowance of the creator. Every author of a book using his or her imagination and abilities to create an impressive work or every scientist who spends time on research on a certain science question, needs to have proper protection of their works. The same is valid for the producers of computer software and computer games. Every individual who produces intellectual products has to be protected against people who would like to benefit from his work improperly (Shields III, 2012).

However, the Internet brings fundamentally new aspects in understanding the use of works and objects of copyright and related rights. Reproduction, public performance, broadcasting, adaptation and distribution of these objects can now be operated from virtually anywhere on the globe. Servers can be placed anywhere, including in countries where copyright protection is insufficient. All this dramatically increases the amount of works that thanks to digital technology can be easily accessible to readers, viewers and listeners. Access to digital information over electronic networks becomes a critical factor in modern research and educa- tional activities. Recently special software has appeared through which people who have In- ternet access can easily, quickly and freely exchange files, regardless of their size, type, etc. It is this new way of bringing the works to the public that is the most important consequence of the emergence of new advanced technology for intellectual property rights and a major challenge for it.

The magnitude of intellectual property theft online has become so huge that it should not be neglected. Many people do not even realize that the free distribution of copyrighted works on the Internet is a crime.

1.1 Research aims and objectives

Bulgaria is a country in which it seems like nothing is done to prevent violation of intellectual rights on the Internet (Kostov, 2012). The goal of this thesis is to investigate where the problem is: legislation, punishment system, lack of political will, users’ beliefs and online

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA behaviour, websites for illegal content, technical difficulties, and so on. We will compare the situation in Bulgaria with that of other countries and the European Union in general. We will examine the efforts that the government and the right holders do in order for the current situation to be changed, and also what the future trends are in the area of intellectual property theft. The major objectives of my thesis are to make a critical assessment of what led to the current situation in Bulgaria, answer what the government is doing to prevent the abuse of intellectual rights and to address how to make the system more effective.

My thesis will search the answers of the following questions: 1) How serious are the problems of online abuse of intellectual property rights in Bulgaria? 2) What is the public opinion on the issue of unauthorized file sharing over the Inter- net? 3) To what extent are the right holders affected financially from the unauthorized usage of their works? 4) Is the Bulgarian government doing everything possible to prevent abuse of intellectual rights on the Internet? Are the measures taken by the government and the right holders successful in preventing people from being involved in online piracy? 5) Is the existing legislation on copyright protection at the moment sufficient or not? What changes, if necessary, should be made to make the certain laws and acts more effective?

We will collect as much information as possible about the criticality of the problem with online abuse of intellectual property rights for Bulgarian artists and right holders. We will try to estimate how many people in Bulgaria download unauthorized songs, movies, software and other protected works; how many websites for downloading are there in Bulgaria and how popular they are; what is the legislation in this area and is it sufficient to handle online piracy.

The combination of both qualitative and quantitative methods for the examination of the research questions will provide for the full covering of the above problems. This will allow us to achieve a good qualitative understanding of the underlying reasons behind the high levels of digital piracy, and to quantify the gathered during the analysis data and draw conclusions by generalizing the results. Later in Chapter three Methodology we will explain which of the methods will address each of the questions.

1.2 Structure of thesis

The major topic in my research is the evaluation of the effectiveness of the measures taken by the government in the fight against the online abuse of intellectual rights by going into thorough analyses of the legislation and the practices in the field.

6 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

The thesis starts with a general introduction of the problems of intellectual property on the Internet. In chapter 2 ‘Literature review’ we will examine and analyze previous works on this issue of both Bulgarian and foreign specialists as well as what are the arguments of the authors claiming that protection of copyrighted works is poorly regulated in Bulgaria? We will make a brief presentation of the existing legislation on this matter - which are the main sources on copyright protection, to what international conventions Bulgaria is a party and what international regulations has it implemented so far.

Later in the thesis in chapters four, five and six we will perform a more detailed investigation of on these issues, examining the causes of these problems in depth and giving examples. To find the reasons for the prevalence of online piracy in Bulgaria I will analyze the ways, places and means for carrying out these illegal activities. We will give examples of certain copyrighted works and gather data from popular Bulgarian torrent portals in order to see what exactly the magnitude of piracy issues in Bulgaria is.

We will finish this thesis with conclusions and recommendations on the matter in chapter seven, as well as with examples of good practices in the field of protection of intellectual property rights in the information society.

Figure 1 represents the structure of the thesis and a brief description of what each chapter is about.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Structure of thesis

Introductoin • Research aims and objectives - what are the questions to which we will seek answers in the thesis • Structure of thesis - Brief presentation of the structure of the thesis Literature review • Abuse of intellectual property rights on the Internet - investigation on previous works on the matter of digital piracy in Bulgaria • Intellectual property and monopoly - description of the injustice of intellectual monopoly • Assessments - what conclusions are drawn by the examination of the literature review on the matter Methodology • Selection of research methods - description of the research methods used in the thesis • Qualitative methods - description of the research instruments used to collect data • Quantiative methods - description of the methods used to analyze the collected data Torrent analysis • Torrent portals in Bulgaria - visual presentation of the problems with torrent portals, analysis of the popularity of such websites and their characteristics • Popular torrent files - example of a popular torrent file, description of users' activities towards new files Legislative issues • Compensatory remuneration - description of the problems with the authors' compensation for the free reproduction for personal use of their works • Liability - a thorough research of the Law on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights (LCNR), analyzing the different parties involved in online piracy in search of the ones that should be held liable to the law for abuse if intellectual property rights Brief comparison with the EU • Brief comparison with the EU- representation of the rates of piracy in other EU contries and what measures they take in order to handle the problem Discussion and conclusions •Is online piracy the real threat in Bulgaria - description of other obstacles that right holders in Bulgaria meet •Recommendations - recommendations and different perspectives on how the situation can be handled •Answers to research questions - answer the questions we have put in chapter 1.1 Research aims and objectives • Summary - short review of the outcome of the thesis • Contribution to knowledge

FIGURE 1: STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS

8 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Unfortunately, issues of copyright infringement on the Internet in Bulgaria at present times are largely neglected, there is lack of practice in the field and the measures that are taken to prevent online piracy are often insufficient (Dacov, Petrov, 2011). Most definitions, structures, legal processes, etc. are borrowed from international organizations in the field of intellectual property or the laws of other countries and then implied in the country’s legislation.

2.1 Abuse of intellectual property rights on the Internet

Copyright and related rights are a part of Intellectual property (the other part being “industrial property”) and concern the protection of the rights of producers, authors, broad- casters and performers. The World Intellectual Property Organization defines intellectual property as “creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce”. Subject to copyright is any work of literature, art and science, which is the result of creative activity and expressed by any means or in any tangible form (LCNR, 1993). Protection in the form of an exclusive right to control reproduction is given for a period of at least 50 years after the death of the author or the last living author in case of co-authorship (in Bulgaria the period is 70 years) and the purpose of this protection is to stimulate creators and reward them for their work and investments (World Trade Organization).

Infringement of copyright and related rights on the Internet is called digital or online piracy. One definition of digital piracy is “the unauthorized reproduction of a copyrighted material available in electronic form, readable and able to be manipulated by a computer” (Bue, McRobers, Davie).

With the invention of the Internet, its development and the countless opportunities it gives people, it became easier to violate and abuse copyrights. There are two fundamental reasons as to why protecting copyrights is a good thing – the first is economic and consists of the proper remuneration of the author for his work and investment and the second is moral, according to which the author is inextricably linked to his work and there should be no disruption of this relationship (Pramatarov, 2007). While the second is harder to violate, thanks to technological development and the emergence of the so-called digital recording techniques it became possible to quickly and easily transmit and distribute objects protected by copyright or related rights (Sarakinov, 2009). This leads to violation of the guaranteed by the law remuneration of the author for his product.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

In order to better understand the problems of online piracy we will first have a look at the Bulgarian legislation on the matter and its analyses by specialists in the fields of intellectual property law.

One of the few authors that write on the topic is Prof. George Sarakinov - lawyer, author and expert on intellectual property, who took part in the making of the Bulgarian Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights (LCNR) and the Law on Radio and TV organizations. In his book Copyright and Neighboring Rights in Bulgaria (2009) he categorizes the sources of copyright into two categories – according to their origin they are internal and external, and according to the relevance to the matter – direct and indirect.

The main legislation regulating the copyright and related rights is the Law on Copy- right and Neighboring Rights which was first legitimated in the year 1993. It regulates the relations connected with the creation and distribution of works of literature, art and science. Ever since its creation the law has been altered many times, the last one being in the year 2011. This gives Krushkov (2013) at the University of National and World Economy the conviction to describe the LCNR “in many aspects as a modern and effective law that is up-to-date with the legislations of the European Union and with the new trends in the violation of intellectual property rights”. During the international conference "Intellectual Property in the Information Technology in Bulgaria" held in Sofia in 2004, Sarakinov stated that LCNR would suffice as a legal framework for intellectual property protection in a normal state. However, he points out that this is not true for Bulgaria, where the levels of piracy are so high that the mere legislation is not enough to ensure the right holders’ rights on the Internet and it is imperative that higher attention is paid to the problem.

As another direct source Sarakinov points to the Constitution of the Republic of Bul- garia (1991) and the articles that are directly related to copyright. These are Art. 54, par. 2 and par. 3, according to which: "The freedom of artistic, scientific and technical creativity is recog- nized and guaranteed by law" and "inventors, copyrights and related rights are protected by law." The last direct source is the Law on Compulsory Deposit of Copies of Printed and Related Products (2000).

Indirect internal sources of copyright in Bulgaria are:

 Law on Obligations and Contracts (1951);  Law of Inheritance (1949);  Law on the Movie Industry (2003);  Law on Radio and Television (1998);  Law on Electronic Communications (2007);  Law on Crafts (2001);

10 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

 Law on Administrative regulation of production and marketing of optical disks and other media matrix containing objects of copyright and related rights (2005);  Law on Protection and Development of Culture (1999);  Penal Code (articles 172a, 173 and 174 referring respectively to counterfeit- ing, plagiarism and intrusion of co-authorship).

Directorate "Copyright and Neighboring Rights" at the Ministry of Culture is in charge of guaranteeing the rights of the authors in Bulgaria. It is established in the year 1993 and consists of 2 departments - "Application of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights and international relations" and "Inspection office copyright". Also the Chief Directorate Combating Organized Crime (CDCOC) has department “Intellectual property” that is in charge of identify- ing and monitoring people for which there is data that are involved in criminal activity and abuse of intellectual rights.

According to the Penal code the punishment for whoever records, reproduces, distrib- utes, broadcasts or transmits, or otherwise uses someone else’s object of a copyright or related rights, without the required by law permission of the right holder, is imprisonment of up to five years and a fine of 1,000 to 5,000 BGN; in case of repeated violation - imprisonment of one to six years and a fine of 3,000 to 6,000 BGN. Any holder of copyright or related rights whose rights have been violated has the opportunity to seek their rights before the civil court by bringing a reprehensible action (Stalev, 2006).

The external sources of copyright consist of the multilateral treaties (conventions) to which Bulgaria is a party. International treaties ratified by the constitutionally established procedure, promulgated and entered into force for the Republic of Bulgaria, become a part of the internal law and take precedence over the provisions of national law in case they conflict with them (Constitution of Bulgaria, 1991). Sarakinov (2009) stresses the most important of these treaties, which are:

 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886), ratified by Bulgaria in 1974  The Universal Copyright Convention (or UCC), adopted at Geneva (1952), ratified by Bulgaria in 1974  Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations (1961), ratified by Bulgaria in 1995  Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Du- plication of Their Phonograms, adopted at Geneva (1971), ratified by Bulgaria in 1995  Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property, adopted at Marrakesh, (1996), ratified by Bulgaria in 2000

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

 Directives of the European Parliament

A list of all international treaties to which Bulgaria is a party may be viewed in Appen- dix 1.

Tzakova (2013) points out that many authors, right holders and lawyers agree that Bulgarian legislation on intellectual property is fully synchronized with that of the European Union (EU). Not only the obligation of Member States to incorporate the directives into their national laws (European Commission) contributes to this fact, but also the changes which Bul- garian government made in its legislation before it joined the European Union on January 1, 2007, so that it is synchronized with that of the EU. In his book Sarakinov (2009), however, reminds us of fact that the EU made a recommendation for more effective implementation of this legislation in the digital world. In his book he pleads for closer cooperation between right holders and content providers on the Internet as a mean to fulfill this task.

Another Bulgarian authority on this subject is Atanas Kostov – advocate and expert on intellectual property rights. Kostov (2012) points out that when it comes to information technologies, both LCNR and the Law on Trade Marks and Geographical Indications are late to settle definitions, frames and legal processes relating protection of intellectual property online. After a thorough analysis of the legislation in Bulgaria in this area, Kostov stresses the absence of regulatory mechanisms to obligate Bulgarian Internet providers to present information about the contents of their local servers, especially in cases where law enforcement agencies have reported copyright violations. According to him there is an obvious lack of initi- ative in Bulgaria in terms of real technological measures to prevent the spread of illegal content on the Internet, and thus the government does not fulfill the country's commitments under the above mentioned international agreements on copyright, since these obligations are reflected only in the legislation itself and not implemented in real situations.

As for the unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted works through torrent websites Kostov (2012) stands firmly behind the claim that it is absolutely illegal. He mentions that an overwhelming number of the users of these websites use them for illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted works, although the law prohibits such actions. However, there are still claims of many people that this type of use of the Internet is not a violation, but on the contrary – helps the right holders by generating more popularity and interest towards their work. Kostov quite correctly points out that the legislation, however, leaves this decision to the authors themselves and it is not correct that someone else manages their property rights at his sole discretion.

Undoubtedly, the largest study in the field of intellectual property in Bulgaria is made by Petrov and Dacov (2011). The authors examine the characteristics of the most popular Bul- garian torrent trackers, displaying some common features for all of them like mandatory regis-

12 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA tration, forums, sections for requests for torrents, classification of the files in different categories, complete information about the works with the possibility for users to comment and rate, as well as information about the number of downloads, seeders (uploaders) and leechers (downloaders). The authors are concerned by the enormous activities of the users of these torrent trackers, who continue to hide behind the right of free access to Internet content and the safeguard of basic human rights. Petrov and Dacov point out that each of the acts of distribution and reproduction of copyrighted works on the Internet without the permission of the author, which is punishable according to art. 172 of the Penal Code, is extremely insignificant when performed by an individual user for personal use and for only a certain number of works. But when we talk about active download and upload of a vast number of works like music, movies, books, software, etc., for an extended period of time and by many users at the same time, it appears to bring serious problems and negative consequences for the right holders. Moreover, considering the Bulgarian legislation on the one hand, and the characteristics of the torrent websites, on the other, the authors conclude that these websites are unlawful and violate the guaranteed by the law protection of intellectual property on the Internet.

Furthermore, in analyzing the Bulgarian legislation in the field, Petrov and Dacov (2011) emphasize the lack of criminal liability for the person who is co-participating in the illegal distribution of copyrighted works on the Internet. In other words, a user who downloads and so simultaneously uploads at the same time (due to the nature of torrent trackers) is not liable to the law. The authors explain this with the difficulty in establishing who precisely those who download/upload are, where their location is, what the ways of downloading are, and what exactly their motives are.

As already pointed out by Kostov (2012), there is no liability of Internet service providers and they are not obliged to monitor the information that is stored, transmitted or made available while providing services to the information society, or to seek facts and circumstances that indicate illegal activity (Law on Electronic Commerce, 2006). Petrov and Dacov see hope in the recent changes in LCNR from 2011, when art. 96e was created, which empowers the Minister of Culture to notify the providers of the illegality of the information provided, under which the latter are obliged to remove it or suspend access to it. The authors express their hope that soon this new rule will give the desired results in the fight against piracy in Bulgaria.

Another possible solution to the problems is that cheap alternatives be provided (Er- ickson, 2012). He claims that the key to success is for Bulgarians to have access to cheap products that act as a legal alternative to downloading. There should also be a stronger collabora- tion between the creators of intellectual property, Internet providers and the government. Moreover, various governmental and non-governmental initiatives on dissemination of

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA knowledge about the problems of illegal content on the Internet would contribute to the changes in users’ behavior (Mediapool.bg, 2012).

Besides the traditional efforts to reduce crimes against intellectual property there should be attempts to change public attitudes to this issue. According to the EU Kids Online Survey (2012) 68 percent of the Bulgarian children are likely to download movies and music for personal use while the average percentage for the European Union is 44 percent. In general, Bulgaria is ranked as one of the countries with the highest levels of Internet piracy in the European Union and this situation is not expected to change in the near future (theepochtimes.com, April 28, 2010).

It is not always the case that the violators of intellectual property rights do it intentionally and abuse them knowingly. Of course, there are also those who knowingly violate copyrights in order to gain commercial or financial benefits for themselves (Yeh, 2012). The very fact that nearly everyone has a quick and free access to intellectual property products online, however, makes it easy to assume that all this is legal.

“The new generation was brought up believing that movies are a free thing and that the Government, the right holders and the private organizations protecting intellectual rights are the “villains” who violate their basic human rights and simply want their money,” - Stefan Minchev, governor of "Alexan- dra Group Holding" (Computer World, 2011).

In the end, however, it is only natural that the vast majority of people will prefer to have stronger protection of the guaranteed by the law right to free access to cultural heritage, rather than a more severe copyright enforcement (Yu, 2011).

2.2 Intellectual property and monopoly

Source: Mimiandeunice.com; Copyleft Nina Pale

There is a strong movement going on online against the protection of intellectual property. Many people argue that the very nature of intellectual property protection is incor-

14 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA rect because it leads to monopoly (Tabarrok, 2008). This, on one hand, may lead to corruption and misuse by the right holders, who try to expand their monopoly way beyond the sensible rationale (Martin, 1998). On the other hand, people from the developing countries may not always be able to legally obtain the protected products. Thus the intellectual property monopoly leads to direct conflict between the financial interests of the authors or the companies representing them and the poor and marginalized (Quesenberry, 2010). As an example of this Levine and Boldrin (2009) point out the inability of many dying African patients to afford the needed drugs for their healing, or the students that are sued by big companies for pirating music. According to Levine, society does not need a structured system for protection of intellectual property in order to stimulate creators.

"There's plenty of protection for inventors and plenty of protection and opportunities to make money for creators. It's not that we see this as some sort of charitable act that people are going to invent and create things without earn- ing money. Evidence shows very strongly there are lots of ways to make money without patents and copyright.", Levine, 2009

Boldrin explains the failure of the current IP system with one sentence:

"Intellectual property is in fact an intellectual monopoly that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps.", Boldrin 2009

In their book Against Intellectual Monopoly Boldrin and Levine (2008) explain that the bigger the market is, the less protection is needed and this is all a natural consequence of the globalization. Quite on the contrary – protection of intellectual property is negatively affecting the growth, prosperity and liberty in society. (Boldrin et al, 2005).

On the official website of the Bulgarian Pirate Party, a political party based on the Swedish Pirate party and member of the Pirate Parties International (Piratskapartia.bg, 2010), is explained the fallacy of intellectual monopoly. According to the party, private monopolies are one of the biggest enemies of modern society. They lead directly to increase in prices and many other hidden costs for the audience. They point out to large corporations that struggle with each other in a race to hold more patents to use against smaller competitors in order to prevent them from competing on equal terms. Furthermore, economic and technological de- velopments have pushed modern copyright laws out of balance and this infers unjust advantages for a limited number of large market monopolies at the expense of consumers, artists and the general public. Millions of classic songs, movies and books are held “hostage” in the vaults of huge media corporations, which are potentially very valuable to society and its

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA cultural heritage. The Bulgarian Pirate Party has set a goal to limit the opportunities for creating destructive and unnecessary monopoly situations.

Source: Mimiandeunice.com; Copyleft Nina Paley

2.3 Assessment

Examining the books, works and opinions of different experts we can make the following assessments:

First, all agree that the Bulgarian legislation is sufficient to provide a legal framework for copyright protection on the Internet in theory. However, in practice they are not executed effectively and do not lead to the necessary results.

Second, problems with online piracy in Bulgaria are very deep and complex and it is difficult to give one definitive solution – changes in many different aspects should occur.

Third, there should be more efforts and attempts not only by the legislators and the judicial authorities, but also by the right holders themselves, in order for this phenomenon to be overcome.

Finally, the experts also plead for more understanding and empathy by the Internet users.

Later in the thesis (section 7.2.) I will try to evaluate the possibilities of these things being implemented, by examining the different points of view and perspectives of how to handle with the issues of online copyright violations.

16 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

3 METHODOLOGY

This thesis is an exploratory research study. Its main aim is to examine the reasons behind the occurrence of the high levels of abuse of intellectual property rights on the Internet in Bulgaria, as well as investigating the governmental measures taken to prevent it and their effectiveness. The use of qualitative research allows us to gain understanding of important and fundamental reasons and motivations behind a certain phenomenon (Sharma, 2010). Another motivation behind the use of this research method is that the problems of online piracy derive from the specific situation and public attitudes towards this issue in the country and require investigation from the point of the parties involved and their specific social and institutional context (Kaplan and Maxwell, 1994).

3.1 Selection of research methods

So far we have made a research examining what has been written on the problems of online abuse of intellectual rights in Bulgaria. Although the scientific researches in this relatively new area are neither many nor large enough, we managed to draw some conclusions about the current situation in Bulgaria. In the examination of the existing written literature in Bulgaria on the problems of online piracy, we have stressed on the most important and significant of them, synthesizing the opinions and beliefs of the authors. The examination of previous studies, books, lecture, etc. on the matter brought many benefits to the better understanding of the issues of online piracy.

For better in-depth research and further understanding of the problems of protection of intellectual property on the Internet I choose to use a mixed-method approach combining both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Although the research may be described mainly as qualitative due to the use of more flexible instruments, in-depth interviews and participant observations, often during the chapters four and six we use quantitative methods for better and more accurate representation of the numerical facts and statistics on the levels of digital piracy in Bulgaria. For better understanding of both methods on Table 2 the main differences between quantitative and qualitative research methods can be seen.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Difference between qualitative and quantitative research

Qualitative Quantitative

Objectives: To gain a qualitative understand- To quantify the data and generalize ing of the underlying reasons and the results from the sample to the motivations population of interest

Sample: Small Large

Data collection: Unstructured Structured

Data analysis: Non-statistical Statistical

Outcome: Develop an initial understanding Recommend a final course of action TABLE 1: DIFFERENCE BETWEEN QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH SOURCE: SHARMA, P., 2010, EXPLORATORY RESEARCH DESIGN: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

As seen from the table the two methods are quite different, and therefore each of them is more suitable in different situations. To achieve optimal understanding of the issues of online piracy, as already explained, we combine both approaches, using them in parallel during the research and analysis in attempt to answer the research questions.

Thus, for questions one and three, concerning respectively the seriousness of the problem of online piracy and the financial losses for right holders, we use mainly the quantitative approach. We use statistical data on the number of torrent trackers in Bulgaria, the percentage of population that is using them, the frequency of uploading new torrent files, the number of downloads of certain torrent files, etc., and so to present the overall scope of digital piracy in Bulgaria and based on that to make conclusions about the authors’ lost profits.

Qualitative research has proven to be more appropriate for questions two, four and five, concerning the public opinion on the issues of free online file sharing, the measures taken by the government to fight digital piracy, and the existing copyright law and its sufficiency in protection of intellectual property rights. These questions require in-depth research study of individual members of the law, critical assessment of the measures taken by the government, review of the public opinion on the matter. These things require the use of more flexible instruments like the in-depth interviews with experts in the field, unstructured data collection so that the matter can be covered more widely, and thus manage to acquire a better understanding of the reasons behind the severity of the problem.

18 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

3.2 Qualitative methods

The selection of instruments and tools of analysis is entirely based on the need of making the critical assessment and evaluation of what the government does to stop the abuse of the intellectual rights. The sources that will be used can be divided into 2 groups – primary and secondary sources:

 Primary sources: direct interviews and surveys with people involved in the area of copyrights, meaning government officials, representatives of foundations and other institutions dealing with cybercrimes; lawyers with practice in the field of In- ternet related issues; authors and experts in the certain area; professors at pres- tigious Bulgarian universities.

The research and analyses for the purposes of this thesis are conducted with the support and cooperation of the following experts:

List of interviewed experts on the matter of online piracy

Prof. Dr. George Dimitrov

Dr. Dimitrov is co-founder of the law firm "Dimi- trov, Petrov & Co.", manages the Department of Law of Information and Communication Tech- nology and the Department of Protection of Intellectual Property. Dimitrov is a Doctor of Laws of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Bel- gium (2008), chairman of the Center for Law of the Information and Communication Technolo- gies in Bulgaria.1 Mr. Dimitrov is also a chair- Photo: Netlaw.bg man of the Foundation "Law and Internet" and is currently a lecturer in ICT Law at Sofia Univer- sity.2 Dr. Dimitrov has shared his professional knowledge and experience on the current legis-

1 http://www.dpc.bg/l_en/?s=5&i=11&resum=1&la=13 2 http://www.netlaw.bg/l_en/?s=15&i=12&o=1#sendmessage

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

lation and the problems of online piracy.

(Interview conducted on 26.02.2013)

Albena Spassova

Ms Albena Spassova is President of the Man- agement Board of the International Cybercrime Investigation Training Academy and lecturer in Information Security and European Law at the University of Science and Technologies in Lille, France. Ms Spassova is often a guest lecturer at renowned European universities and government advisor on issues related with cyber- Photo: E-crimeacademy.org crimes. As a lawyer she has much experience in the protection of intellectual property rights, combating organized crime and other. 3

Ms Spassova has provided scientific and practical observations about the current situation on the prevention of crimes related to intellectual property theft in Bulgaria.

(Interview conducted on 15.02.2013)

Prof. Dr. Violeta Tzakova

Dr. Tzakova is a specialist in the field of copyright and related rights, professor in the De- partment "Intellectual Property" at the Univer- sity of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bul- garia, and an author of numerous publications in the field of copyright and related rights. 4

Photo: Ipbulgaria.bg She has contributed to this thesis with assessment of the Bulgarian legislation in the field of copyright protection and description of the

3 http://www.cybercrimeacademy.org/en/team.html 4 http://ipbulgaria.bg/?page_id=2

20 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

current obstacles in its prosecution.

(Interview conducted on 04.03.2013)

Dr. Nikolay Krushkov

Dr. Krushkov has a Ph.D. in Economics, Master of Law and is Assistant Professor at the De- partment “Intellectual Property” of the Univer- sity of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bul- garia. He is author of several publications in the field of copyright on Internet as well as man- 5 agement of intellectual property rights.

Photo: Ipbulgaria.bg Dr. Krushkov has stated his opinion on the issues of online piracy.

(Interview conducted on 18.02.2013)

Kalin Karakehayov

Mr. Karakehayov is Internet marketing and search engine expert with a lot of experience on website metrics and user behaviour online. He has a working knowledge of Internet rights, online sharing, piracy.

Mr. Karakehayov has assisted with the analysis of the problems with Bulgarian torrent trackers and pirate activity by the users. Photo: Seoptimizacia.com (Interview conducted on 07.03.2013) TABLE 2: LIST OF INTERVIEWED EXPERTS ON THE MATTER OF ONLINE PIRACY

With each of the experts I have conducted semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The semi-structured method allows for the interviewees to express their

5 http://bg.convdocs.org/docs/index-44230.html

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

opinion and experience freely and in their own terms (Newton, 2010). The face- to-face interviewing is preferable when the research is focusing more on the in- depth understanding of problems (Ritchie, J. and Lewis. J. (eds.), 2003). The questions that I have prepared are open-ended rather than using a more static form like multiple choice, in which the different possibilities to express one’s views are quite limited. Using these methods to interview the chosen experts allow me to gain deeper insight and better understanding of the complex and controversial nature of the protection of intellectual property rights on the Internet. The set of questions (See Appendix 2) are the same for all experts, although they were not necessarily strictly followed for the sake of free discussions on the matter and gaining more information about the different perspectives and points of view. Thus the experts were encouraged to express their motivations, beliefs, attitudes or thoughts concerning the given issues. This is called projective techniques of the qualitative research procedures and allows the respondents to project their personal feelings and attitudes towards the behavior of others (Rofianto, 2011)

None of the experts’ responses will be presented individually in separate para- graphs. The information, data, opinions and recommendations gathered will be included during the course of presentation of the thesis in the relevant chapters.

 Secondary sources: during the research we have accessed information from Bul- garian laws and international acts, media and statistical websites, newspapers, written literature as well as previous interviews with experts on the matter.

We also include visual presentations of the findings. The thesis includes different types of presentation of the findings during the research period. The visual presentations help to show my findings more clearly.

3.3 Quantitative methods

Next we develop the information gathered so far and expand it with personal research and analysis in this area, covering different issues and perspectives of this problem. We look at how things are in reality indeed. We will present data and information on the practices in Bul- garia, search for additional statistics with the help of experts in the field. We look for specific examples to illustrate the already mentioned problems and thus make the material more detailed and thorough. We include the collected information from the in-depth interviews with the experts on the matter of intellectual property in order to cover the phenomenon more widely, analyzing their opinions and points of views and comparing them with the data and information gathered during the qualitative research as well as with the conclusions drawn by the examination of the literature review.

22 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

The collected data are used for quantifying the current online problems and threats in Bulgaria. We analyze Bulgarian websites for sharing piracy content like torrent trackers and sites for direct download of products. Assessment of the criticality of these issues will be made on the basis of the number of torrent files in various websites, number of users, rates of downloading and uploading protected works. We give certain examples of popular torrent files and the will follow their development for a certain period of time in order to analyze users’ activities and behavior. Based on these data we present the magnitude of Bulgarians’ pirating activity.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

4 TORRENT ANALYSIS

Having described the intended methodology for the thesis, this chapter presents the results of an in-depth analysis and relevant examples of problems in violation of intellectual property rights on the Internet.

All the authors and experts on intellectual property reviewed so far are convinced that online piracy in Bulgaria is a serious problem. I now look at what exactly the situation in the country is and what gives them reasons to support this claim.

4.1 Torrent portals in Bulgaria

First, I look at the list of top 500 websites among Bulgarian users and will estimate how many of them have something to do with the violation of copyrights. In the table below I have collected data about the popular torrent websites and websites for free downloads among Bulgarian consumers, as well as amounts of monthly searches of these websites in Google.

24 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

# Website Alexa Monthly Type of Year Nationality ranking6 searches 7 website8 created 1. zamunda.net 7 1,381,600 Torrent 2007 Bulgarian 2. arenabg.com 19 77,900 Torrent 2003 Bulgarian 3. data.bg 53 65,900 Download 2002 Bulgarian 4. thepiratebay.se 86 42,600 Torrent 2001 Foreign 5. p2pbg.com 162 13,500 Torrent 2007 Bulgarian 6. rutracker.org 228 12,120 Torrent 2010 Foreign 7. energy-torrent.com 243 12,590 Torrent 2007 Bulgarian 8. wrzru.com 260 15,426 Torrent 2007 Bulgarian 9. bg-zamunda.net 338 350 Torrent 2012 Bulgarian 10. isohunt.com 386 8,200 Torrent 2003 Foreign 11. masters-tb.com 404 5,400 Torrent 2008 Bulgarian 12. kat.ph 490 1,022 Torrent 2008 Foreign 13. torrentz.eu 493 480 Torrent 2008 Foreign

TABLE 3: POPULAR WEBSITES IN BULGARIA FOR FILE SHARING AND DOWNLOADING.

At first glance these statistics do not look that troubling. Out of the top 500 of most popular websites in Bulgaria, only 13 of them are designed for downloading and uploading of illegal content. However, given the fact that only one of these websites (Zamunda.net) has made 3.3 million registrations up to this point (according to the website URLs on 2013/02/23), which is approximately half the population of Bulgaria now, it is clear that the problem is more serious than it may look.

According to the National Statistical Institute (NSI), 50.9 percent of the population has access to the Internet (NSI, 2012). According to the NSI, Bulgaria's population at the moment is around 7,320,000 people. This means that about 3,660,000 people use the Internet. Given

6 Alexa rank - Position in a websites visits/traffic chart for Bulgaria, according to Alexa.com (data retrieved on 26.02.2013) 7 Monthly searches - number of people from Bulgaria, that search for the website's brand name in Google.bg per month (data from Google keyword tool, 12 month average February 2012 - January 2013) 8 Type of website - Torrent websites host only .torrent files and/or magnet links and help users exchange files, while Download sites host the pirated content themselves. Foreign download sites like Rapidshare.com, 4shared.com, the now closed Megaupload.com and Hotfile.com (actually created by a Bulgarian) were also popular until recently, but their popularity faded in favour of torrent trackers.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA that only one of the above mentioned websites for sharing of pirated content has 3,300,000 registrations, I feel confident to support the statement of Deputy Director of the Sofia Investi- gation Service Svetoslav Vasilev (2007) that 90 percent of the Bulgarian Internet users use websites for illegal distribution of intellectual property. (Media Pool, 2007).

Some time ago the websites for direct download of files from the website's servers were very popular in Bulgaria. The research shows that there is only one such website in the top 500. People started using torrent portals much more because of the advantages that they offer. The only such website now (Data.bg) is used mainly for downloading MP3s, because, on one hand, they are not usually very widespread in the torrent portals, and on the other, uploading such small files on the Data.bg’s servers is much easier and less time consuming than the procedure in torrent portals.

Table 4 also shows that the three most used websites for download of intellectual products are Bulgarian. Overall, it can be concluded that users rely more on the Bulgarian portals for downloading, which in most cases are sufficient to provide the works that the users are searching for due to the huge number of torrent files there. Moreover, the speed of downloading is much faster when you use local websites as opposed to international sites, and this is something very important for most users.

Zamunda.net and Arenabg.com are the most popular torrent portals in Bulgaria and are respectively the 7-th and the 19-th most popular websites among Bulgarian Internet users. Although Arenabg.com is the oldest website for file sharing, Zamunda.net is currently the most widespread torrent portal among the users. One of the things that motivate people to upload and seed more in Zamunda.net is the classification of users according to their activity. The different ranks that the users can get are explained on the website, in the section FAQ, and are as follow:

26 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

 User - Standard rank of new registered users.  Superuser - This rank is obtained automatically at 50 GB uploaded and the user should be registered on our website for at least 30 days.  Junior Uploader - Users with permission to upload torrents. This ranking is given if the user has an uploading speed bigger than 400kb/sec and has filled out a certain form.  Uploader - Users with permission to upload torrents. This ranking is given at the discretion of the moderator.  Super Uploader - Users with permission to upload torrents. This ranking is given at the discretion of the administrator.  VIP - Same as Uploader, but with an additional contribution to the site.  Junior Moderator - Allows for one month trial period before being promoted to Moderator.  Moderator - Can edit/delete uploaded torrents. Also can moderate users’ comments and ban user accounts (and IP-s).  Administrator - Takes care of almost everything in the torrent site.  Chef - Owner of website.

FIGURE 2: USERS’ RANKINGS ON ZAMUNDA.NET SOURCE: ZAMUNDA.NET, ACQUIRED ON 01.03.2013

This system encourages people to upload more and newer files or at least to seed (upload) the downloaded files more durably so that they can have a higher ranking. Thanks to this Zamunda.net becomes full of content, which can be obtained quickly and easily because of all the traffic.

To get a clearer idea of the extent of the pirate activity of the most popular Bulgarian torrent tracker – Zamunda.net, I will present data on the number of new torrent files that are uploaded every day. For a period of ten days I have followed the increase of torrent files on the web site, recording their exact number and the number of new torrents every day. The results are as follow:

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Number of new torrent files uploaded per day in Zamunda.net

Date Torrent files New torrents

2013-02-20 173 586 125

2013-02-21 173 711 151

2013-02-22 173 862 99

2013-02-23 173 961 186

2013-02-24 174 147 91

2013-02-25 174 238 120

2013-02-26 174 358 74

2013-02-27 174 432 100

2013-02-28 174 532 106

2013-03-01 174 638 TABLE 4: NUMBER OF NEW TORRENT FILES UPLOADED PER DAY

As it can be seen from the table an average of 116 new torrents are uploaded every day in Zamunda.net. The highest percentage of all of them is that of music, movies and software, although there are many other categories as well. One can also find a large amount of different files, such as computer and PlayStation games, videos, cartoons and animations, books and comics, picture galleries, pornography. The torrent tracker has a very detailed search engine that allows users to specify their search in detail. First, they can choose to search in one or several of the 33 different categories of torrent files, and then they can sort the results according to the number of their comments, the rating of the file, the date on which it was uploaded, the size of the file. Undoubtedly, the most useful option for users is the ability to sort the files according to the number of seeders and thus determining the files which will be downloaded more quickly. Figure 5 shows a screenshot of Zaminda.net, visualiz- ing the presented information.

28 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

FIGURE 3: SCREENSHOT OF THE TORRENT PORTAL ZAMUNDA.NET (DATA RETRIEVED ON 04.03.2013, 12:20 PM)

In the upper part of the figure we can see the different categories of torrent files. Clicking on one of the categories users can view torrent files only of the particular type (for example Games/PC, Games/PS, Games/Xbox, Games/Console, Clips, Books/Comic, etc.). In the search engine of the web site one can also specify which type of files she or he wants to find. Then the retrieved results may be sorted according to their rating, date, size, downloads, seeders or leechers. All of these things make the torrent portal Zamunda.net very popular among Bulgarian users.

As previously mentioned movies, music and software are indisputably the three categories where users’ piracy is the greatest. These are the works that most often become a subject of infringement of intellectual property rights. Not only in Bulgaria but worldwide the illegal distribution of copyrighted works in the field of movie, music and software industry is a serious problem for right holders. Figure 6 shoes the trend in the numbers of these three types of torrent files on the website. The data were collected daily over a period of ten days. This period did not differ from the usual development of the torrent site, following is normal condition, and so we can assume that the time period may be considered as representative.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Increase of the numbers of movie, music and software torrent files for a 10 days period

46000 11540 45800 11520 45600 45400 11500

45200 11480 45000 44800 11460 44600 11440 44400 11420 44200

Number44000 of 11400 Number of torrents torrents

Movies (left axis) Music (left axis) Software (right axis)

FIGURE 4: INCREASE OF THE NUMBERS OF MOVIE, MUSIC AND SOFTWARE FILES FOR 10 DAYS

This research on the processes at Zamunda.net shows how widespread piracy is in the country. Apparently, people have no problems or feel any guilt when uploading a file that they have obtained one way or another, or to download movies, music, software, etc. from the Internet.

4.2 Popular torrent files

For the purpose of this study I illustrate the development of torrent files with a specific example. I examine the development of a certain torrent file for a period of a few days after its first upload on Zamunda.net. I chose the movie The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, because it was the most popular and anticipated movie in Bulgaria at the time. The file was uploaded in the torrent portal for the first time on February 14, 2013, 08:20 Am., almost three months after the official premiere in theaters in Bulgaria on 16 November 2012 (IMDB.com). By the next day the movie has already been downloaded more than 34,000 times. Though it had been a while since the premiere, the file generated a huge interest among the users and the results were quite impressive. I use two different tables to present the found data. Figure 7 presents the progress of the torrent file for a period of two hours on the second day of the uploading, as the data were retrieved every 15 minutes.

30 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Activity of the torrent file The.Twilight.Saga.Breaking.Dawn.Part.2.2012.DVDRip.XviD- GECKOS.torrent 40,000

35,000

30,000

25,000

20,000

15,000 Numberofusers 10,000

5,000

,0 17:00 17:15 17:30 17:45 18:00 18:15 18:30 18:45 19:00 Downloads 33,993 34,329 34,654 35,007 35,256 35,417 35,803 36,219 36,652 Seeders 10475 8613 9230 9949 9989 10646 11320 12021 13106 Leechers 2,646 604 1,029 1,502 1,788 2,021 2,532 3,124 3,780

FIGURE 5: ACTIVITY OF THE TORRENT FILE THE.TWILIGHT.SAGA.BREAKING.DAWN.PART.2.2012.DVDRIP.XVID- GECKOS.TORRENT ON 2013-02-15

As it can be seen from the graph, 35 hours after the torrent was uploaded, the movie was downloaded more than 36,000 times. For the popularity of the torrent contributed the fact that it was placed in the list of top 10 most recommended torrent files in the portal, maintained by the moderators, and so anyone who visited the website immediately saw that the long-awaited movie had finally appeared on the torrent tracker. By midnight the number of downloads have already reached 42,626.

Although the euphoria around the new torrents is always the greatest at the beginning, the movie continued to be the most seeded torrent for the next two weeks. The second torrent file of the movie was the DVD itself – the development of this torrent file over the next 12 days is presented in Appendix 3. During the next days more torrent files of the same movie began to appear, this time in different extensions – Xvid-s, DVD-R-s, HD-s, etc. Still, the most downloaded one remained the already mentioned file, which was still being promoted in the list of the newest and most popular torrents at the time. The next graph follows its development over the next two weeks.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Activity of the torrent file The.Twilight.Saga.Breaking.Dawn.torrent for a period of 2 weeks

Number Number of of seeders leechers and downloads

FIGURE 6: ACTIVITY OF THE TORRENT FILE THE.TWILIGHT.SAGA.BREAKING.DAWN.TORRENT FOR 2 WEEKS

At the end of February the film was still generating an average of 200 new downloads per day, although the number of leechers began to lower a lot. The popularity of the file continued until the emergence of another much anticipated movie - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, uploaded on 28 February 2013, which took Twilight’s position on the top of the mentioned list, reducing its downloads. As it can be seen from the graph, during the first week after the uploading the movie rapidly gained up to 80,000 downloads altogether, while after that the line gradually starts to lose its increase, meaning less new downloads during the next days.

Zamunda.net is now much more than a torrent tracker, it's a social network where every popular movie gets hundreds or even thousands of comments and ratings. All these things clearly show how widespread piracy is among Bulgarian users.

32 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

5 LEGISLATIVE ISSUES

Source: Mimiandeunice.com; Copyleft Nina Paley

The main point on which the protection of copyright is organized is its exclusive nature (Tzakova, 2009). This exclusivity means that only the author can perform actions using the work. At the same time, the protection granted by the law is not unconditional and is limited in the name of other more superior rights and interests (Tzakova, 2009). Above all, these are the cultural rights and interests of the public to gain access to achievements of science and art, to knowledge and cultural heritage and other human values.

Accroding to Krushkov (2006) the rapid development of technology and the Internet brings with it a list of diverse and intractable issues at both international and national levels. He states that public relations in this connection have not yet been fully crystallized.

Often individual articles of the LCNR may be interpreted from several different perspectives. Thus sometimes both the violators and the right holders indicate to the same articles in their defense. These issues are covered later in the thesis.

5.1 Compensatory remuneration

The problems for the right holders arise not because of the high user activity, but because of the lack of its proper implementation of the legislation in the area. According to Art. 25. of the LCNR (which will be discussed more detailed later in this chapter) users, on one hand, have the right to use copyrighted works from the Internet without the permission of the right holders, and copyright holders, on the other hand, are guaranteed to receive the necessary compensation for this. In Art. 26 of the law we see who should be paying compensation to and by whom this compensation is owed:

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Art. 26. (1) Authors of works, performers, producers of phonograms and producers of initial recordings of movies or other audio-visual works shall be entitled to a compensatory remuneration, where the recordings are reproduced for personal use as set out in Art. 25, Para 1, Item 2. A right to compensatory remuneration shall also have the authors and publishers of any kind of print works, when such works are reproduced in reprographic manner for personal use under the conditions of Art. 25, Para 1, Item 1. (2) Any waiver of the right to compensatory remuneration by the right holders referred to in Para 1 shall be invalid. (3) The remuneration referred to in Para 1 shall be due by the persons who:

 manufacture blank information carriers;  import from third countries blank information carriers.

(4) The remuneration referred to in Para 1 shall be due by the persons referred to in Para 3 for sales of information carriers on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria, primarily intended for reproduction of works for personal use by natural persons under Art. 25, Para 1, Item 2.

At first glance it seems like the law settles fair relations in the information society. Go- ing into the details of these texts, however, we see that in fact right holders are quite unjusti- fied. Some of the problems are due to the last changes in LCNR from 2011. Before, besides the blank information carriers compensatory payment was due also by manufacturers and importers of recording and reproducing apparatus of digital media too. By abolishing this obligation, accrued remuneration declined dramatically despite the constant increase of users’ activity in recent years. Another problem is that the percentage of the value is very small. The law says that it cannot be higher than 1,5 percent of the supply value of the blank information carriers. Not only their price is not high in general, but also the cost of technology is constantly falling. Thus, the amount of the compensation becomes reasonably worrying.

There is another problem with the compensatory remuneration for free use of copyrighted works that remains to be noted. Once collected the deductions should be allocated to the various organizations for collective management of rights in Bulgaria. Before that, however, 30 percent of the collected amounts have to be transferred to the account of the National Fund "Culture". After that the remaining amount will be distributed among the individual members of these organizations.

All this gives Tsakova (2013) enough reasons to express her concerns about the current situation in the settlement of the free use of copyrighted works. The law is in fact very well organized and detailed, but in the end the compensation is highly inadequate. Perhaps this is the reason why the discussed in the Literature Review authors do not mention at all

34 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA these articles of the LCNR. For people who are familiar with the legislation and its effectiveness, it is clear that it is not a satisfactory solution for the right holders in their fight against the abuse of their works. On the other hand, these are the articles that make users comfortable with the current situation and not afraid to continue doing these activities.

5.2 Liability

We continue with the analysis of the laws in the field of intellectual property and their particular articles, referring to the problems of infringement of copyrights on the Internet in an attempt to find who exactly is responsible to the law for this violation.

We begin with the end users - those who use torrent portals to download files, listen to music and watch movies illegally. Art. 25 of the LCNR is the very one that all users and de- fenders of online piracy (or online sharing, as they call it) use in their defense. The law is very clear, indeed:

Free Use with Payment of Compensation (title amend. – SG 77/02, in force from 01.01.2003)

Art. 25. Without consent of the owner of the copyright but upon payment of fair compensation shall be admissible:

1. reproduction with non-commercial purposes of printed works, except note materials, on paper or other similar carrier by reprography or other tech- nique, ensuring similar result;

2. reproduction of works, regardless of the carrier, by a natural person for personal use unless done with commercial purposes.

From the text of this article it becomes clear that users that download works for personal use do nothing illegal. Basically, the cited articles are enough to end the dispute on the matter of the illegality of users’ activities here. But things are not so simple in reality. The problems come from the very essence of the file sharing through the torrent trackers. Let us have a brief look at the way that they function.

Torrent trackers use the BitTorrent protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing, thus making it easy for users to exchange files with each other. This protocol is responsible for 43-70 percent of all Internet traffic and also for a great deal of online copyright violations (Ipoque, 2009). Files that are transferred by using BitTorrent are split into pieces and hash tables make sure every file ends up whole again at the downloader's computer. The .torrent file points to the tracker, where a list of the providers (seeders) and downloaders (leechers) of a file is maintained. Therefore, the typical status of every user involved in the sharing is seeder and leecher at the same time.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Dimitrov (2013) clearly states that seeding is not a violation. In order there to be a violation there should be dissemination of protected works without the permission of the right holder. In order for dissemination, however, the work must be fully distributed, i.e. there needs to be a completed result. When seeding, as discussed above, individual users submit only pieces of the file and not the whole one, moreover, not to a specific person, but to an unknown number of people, which does not meet the requirements of dissemination. From this perspective, the Bulgarian court has clearly stated that seeders cannot be held liable with regard to Art. 94. by LCNR9. This is consistent with the statement of the authors Petrov and Dacov (2011), whose work we’ve covered in the literature review, that the end users can not be considered as co-participants in the crime of computer piracy.

Finally, it should be noted that the users who download copyrighted works cannot know if they have been obtained legally or not. As prosecutor of the Sofia District Prosecutor's Office Dinev (2010) also says that the prosecution does not pursue the users, but the owners of the torrent websites, the people who create the opportunity for intellectual theft (24Chasa.bg, January 8, 2010).

Having clarified that people who download content from the web are not legally responsible, we continue to look for the offenders down the chain and focus our attention on torrent providers. As already mentioned above, two of these generate almost all pirate activity among Bulgarian users (Zamunda.net and Arenabg.com) and that they are usually blamed for the current situation in the country. We will examine the issue more closely.

Unlike the case with users, where the law is quite clear and unambiguous, here the problem can be viewed from two different perspectives. The law that regulates relations of content providers on the Internet is the Electronic Commerce Act (ECA). We look at two of its articles that the content providers and the right holders respectively use in their defense.

First, Art. 13 presents the cases in which providers are not responsible for the content of their websites.

Liability upon providing services for access and transmission (Solicitorbulgar- ia.bg, August 21, 2008)

Article 13. (1) (Amended, SG No. 41/2007) Upon providing access to or transmission trough electronic communication network the service provider shall

9 Art. 94. (amend. -SG 99/05, in force from 10.01.2006) (1) Whoever infringes copyright, related right or other right under this law, shall owe indemnification to the owner of the right or the person who has been granted exclusive right of use.

36 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

not be liable for the content of the information transmitted and for the activities of the recipient of the service, if the provider:

1. does not initiate the transmission of the information; 2. does not select the receiver of the information transmitted, and 3. does not select or modify the transmitted information.

From the analysis of the characteristics of Bulgarian torrent providers with regard to the above articles, we can get to the following inferences:

1. users choose what content to upload, in what form, at what time, how often, etc. themselves, not administrator of the website; 2. the administrator does not distinguish users and does not identify the recipients of information in any way - Internet users decide by themselves whether to register in a certain torrent tracker and which files to download after that; 3. the administrator does not change the content uploaded by users - files remain in the same way as the uploader uploaded them, without having to pass through any processing

This is the defense of the owners of these websites. They claim that they cannot be held liable for the actions of the thousands of users of their websites and cannot constantly make sure that the uploaders have obtained rights to upload certain works, according to Elian Geshev, owner of ArenaBG.com (24chasa, August 1, 2010). They only provide users with the methods to connect with one another. From then on users decide themselves what files to share.

Another argument that the owners of the websites use in their defense is that their servers are abroad (mainly in the Netherlands) (News.bg, April 29, 2010). Dimitrov (2013) has stated that this is irrelevant because the sites are clearly intended for Bulgarian users, the language is Bulgarian and, most importantly, the damage is on the territory of this country. From this point of view the Bulgarian legislation in the field shall be applied, and not that of the country in which the servers are located.

Three articles later ECA states the cases in which content providers are responsible and should take measures to prevent the violations made through their site:

Article 16. (1) A provider of a service, that constitutes storage of information, when such storage takes place at the request of a recipient of the service who has supplied the information, shall not be liable either for the content of the information stored or for the activities of the recipient of the service, if the service provider:

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

1. does not have an actual knowledge of the unlawful character of the activities or the information, or 2. is not aware of the facts or circumstances from which the unlawfulness of the activities or information is apparent.

Article 17. The service provider is not obligated either to monitor the information that he stores, transmits or makes accessible when providing services for the information society or to be in search of facts and circumstances that indicate unlawful activities.

To make the following analysis more understandable let’s make the assumption that the Bulgarian torrent sites do not have any moderators. Then the owners cannot be held responsible under the above-mentioned articles and therefore it can be assumed that they do not monitor what is happening on the site and are not aware of the unlawfulness of the distributed content.

The presence of moderators, however, who maintain the website, make categoriza- tions and catalogues of the files, remove inactive torrents, keep a list with the files that need seeders, monitor the comments, etc., suggests monitoring by the administrators, and therefore it can be concluded that they are completely aware of what is going on their websites and so obligated to take the necessary measures to prevent these violations.

One might argue that a user who uploads a song or movie has actually paid for the right to distribute it on the Internet for free (though this is an extremely frivolous assumption). According to Art. 25 of LCNR, however, computer programs are completely forbidden for free use even with compensatory remuneration. Therefore, keeping in mind that the administrators keep track of that is happening on the website, automatically follows their responsibility to remove the certain torrents. Not only they do not to that, but on Zamunda.net there are even several different categories of such torrent files: Programs/Mac, Programs/PC ISO, Pro- grams/other, containing altogether 12 045 different files (data retrieved on 2013/04/20).

Furthermore, the presence of a rating system of the users in Zamunda.net encourages them to increase the upload or exchange more information in order to get a higher profile rate. As well, on the forum of the website you can find files with tips and explanations about quicker and easier downloading, which additionally stimulates the users towards higher activity.

Finally, can examine again Art. 25 of the LCNR, regulating the right of free access to copyrighted work with payment of compensation, from the perspective of providers of the content, the torrent trackers. As already mentioned, the nature of torrent trackers makes the works available to an unlimited number of people, and each of the downloading users is respectively uploading the same work at the same time. The law, however, says that the right of

38 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA free access consists only in the reproduction of works, not distribution and this is exactly what these websites do. Moreover, this type of file sharing with the general public goes beyond the requirement for "personal use".

While there were some disputes about the liability of the owners of torrent websites, in the academic circles there is no dispute about the certainty that the problems with online piracy are mainly generated by the users who actually upload content on the web without having obtained the legal right to do so. LCNR (Art. 18) is clear that the right to distribute a work belongs only to right holder and anyone who violates this right shall pay a compensatory fee for damages. The problem is that with the advance of information technology it has become very easy for users to hide their tracks and thus their identification becomes very difficult. Moreover, the uploader does not have to be active all the time. He is the person who provides the first "copy" of the product. As soon as the file is downloaded by another person who starts seeding it himself, the uploader’s work is done and people can start sharing the file among themselves without the uploader’s help anymore.

The difficulty in solving this problem comes from the fact that it is hard to determine exactly who, when, where and what is doing on the World Wide Web. The situation becomes even more difficult because of the fact that the Internet is not limited by the existing state borders and any national legislation concerning the use of this network must be global in scope (Sarakinov, 2012). Tsakova (2013) agrees that piracy problems cannot be solved at a national level, and international harmonization is needed.

From these analyzes we can conclude that the claim of Dacov and Petrov (2011) that the activity of torrent trackers is unlawful and that their owners should be held liable for the spread of online piracy, has strong support. The uploaders of copyrighted works who illegally distribute them through the means of such websites should be prosecuted.

All these laws, however, are not enforced. Unfortunately, the government does nothing to specifically apply these laws in practice, as many of the review experts have already pointed out. According to Tsakova (2013) the misapplication of the laws is the main issue behind the problems of right holders in the information society. None of the authors that I have examined, as well as none of the experts with whom I have spoken, could give a plausible ex- planation as to why the state does not take appropriate measures. On one hand an obstacle is the possibility that the law often can be viewed from two opposing points of view, and on the other - the insufficient technological capabilities of the government (Apostolov, 2012). Quite indicative about this matter is the statement of Dacov during a conference entitled "Promot- ing the business in the digital world", 2011:

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

"Intellectual property is the lowest priority item of the government. When the country deals effectively with poverty, then will it pay attention to the problem of copyright infringement” (Computer World, December 2011).

6 BRIEF COMPARISON WITH THE EU

To make a comparison between the seriousness of online piracy in Bulgaria and that of other EU countries, we looked at the top ten most visited websites in each country, in order to see how many of them are torrent portals or other websites for illegal distribution of copyrighted works. Once again we use the classifications of the website Alexa.com10, measuring the traffic of websites, to retrieve the needed information.

TABLE 6 SOFTWARE PIRACY RATES IN THE EU SOURCE: ALEXA.COM

After examining the regional Alexa.com top list for each of the EU countries, we can draw the following conclusions:

10 http://alexa.com/topsites/countries

40 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

1. No other country has a torrent portal or other web site for illegal distribution of copyrighted works at such a high position as Zamunda.net is in Bulgaria, ranking number seven in the classification of most popular websites in the country; 2. Of all 27 member states only two other countries have such a web site among their top ten most viewed websites - Romania with Filelist.ro, ranking number nine in the country, and Slovenia with Partis.si, ranking number ten; 3. All the other 24 member states do not have any torrent portal or other web site abusing intellectual property rights among the ten most visited websites in the countries.

Furthermore, most EU countries do not have a torrent tracker even in their top 25 most visited websites, while Bulgaria has two (Arenabg.com is at position 19). This shows how serious the problem of abusing intellectual property rights is in Bulgaria, compared with other member states.

Online piracy is not prevalent only in the music and movie industry. Software piracy in Bulgaria is also worrying large, amounting to average of 102 million USD losses from theft of business software (Business Software Alliance, 2012). According to a survey by the Business Software Alliance in 2011 Bulgaria ranks first in the European Union on unlicensed software installed on personal computers. Table 1 shows the incidence of software piracy by country members of the EU, as well as the estimated commercial value losses.

Software Piracy Commercial Val- # EU country Rate (%) ue ($M)

1. Bulgaria 64 102

2. Romania 63 207

3. Greece 61 343

4. Latvia 54 32

5. Lithuania 54 44

6. Poland 53 618

7. Cyprus 48 19

8. Estonia 48 25

9. Italy 48 1,945

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

10. Slovenia 46 52

11. Spain 44 1,216

12. Malta 43 7

13. Hungary 41 143

14. Portugal 40 245

15. Slovakia 40 68

16. France 37 2,754

17. Czech Republic 35 214

18. Ireland 34 144

19. Netherlands 27 644

20. Germany 26 2,265

21. United Kingdom 26 1,943

22. Finland 25 210

23. Sweden 24 461

24. Belgium 24 252

25. Denmark 24 222

26. Austria 23 226

27. Luxembourg 20 33

Total Average: Overall:

European Union 33 % 14,433

Worldwide 42 % 63,456

TABLE 5 SOFTWARE PIRACY RATES IN THE EU

Although Bulgaria ranks first in pirated software in Europe, this problem remains very critical worldwide. According to the Business Software Alliance the losses of unlicensed soft-

42 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA ware in 2010 accumulate to $ 58.8 billion, which is thirteen percent more than in the year 2009, and almost twice as big compared with the losses in 2003. The losses continue to increase, reaching $ 63.4 billion in 2011 (BSA, 2012).

Moreover, in the EU the percentage of Bulgarian users using illegal software may be the biggest from all (64 percent), but the losses from this activity are relevantly small ($ 102 million). For example, in France the same percentage is 37, but the commercial value equals to $ 2,754 million, and in Germany – 26 percent and $ 2,265 million losses. Thus Bulgaria ranks 20th in the EU when it comes to commercial value losses because of software piracy.

As already mentioned in the literature review, with the accession of Bulgaria to the EU in 2007 the law in the area of intellectual property was synchronized with that of the Union. The situation in Bulgaria, however, remains worse than the average for the European Union. One of the main differences between Bulgaria and other EU states is the way of law enforcement (Dacov & Petrov, 2011). In Europe as a general principle stays the possibility of copyright holders to monitor the online network by a specifically licensed by the state company, in order to establish violations. After detection of the offenders, a special state administrative body makes one or several warnings over a period of time and if the offense continues, there is a penalty. The latter includes a fine and temporary suspension of Internet access, and the viola- tor is unable to join another Internet provider.

In Bulgaria, however, there is no such competent authority to monitor copyright violations on the Internet. At the moment it is the Ministry of Culture that is responsible for the monitoring of Bulgarian websites for illegal use of copyrighted works and only the Minister of Culture or his deputy may impose compulsory administrative measures in connection of copyright infringement. Dacov and Petrov make the assumption that if the task of monitoring the web is given to a specially licensed for this private company, as it is explained above, the control will be much more thorough and Bulgaria may finally be able to reach the same levels of protection of copyright as in the other EU countries.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

7. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

In the next pages we analyze the research done so far, and based on it will make recommendations for what should be done in order for the problems with online abuse of intellectual property rights to be overcome if not fully, at least to a certain extent. We give examples of different solutions to the problem which have already proven to be effective.

Based on the collected information and the analysis made using the mentioned in Chapter 3 methodology, we manage to give answers to the research questions we have put at the beginning of the thesis (section 1.2.). The current research study ends with a summary of the key points and windings that we have managed to reach.

7.1. Is online piracy the real threat in Bulgaria?

The making of a movie requires huge investments, which later should be restored from the sale of cinema tickets or DVDs. This principle is fully justified and working in most countries of the European Union. For a country like Bulgaria, however, the reality is a bit different. On one hand, Bulgaria is a small country with a small population (around 7,320,000 people, National Statistical Institute, 2011) and therefore the Bulgarian market is quite limited. On the other hand, a large proportion of the population is living on the poverty line (Euractiv.com, 2010). Hence, the probability that someone goes to the movies without being sure that the movie is worth the money, let alone to buy the DVD, is close to zero (Georgiev, 2012). From this point of view one could draw the conclusion that if there was not free access to movies online, most Bulgarians would not be able to watch many movies at all. Further- more, one could also assume that the losses the movie companies claim to suffer due to online piracy are hereby exaggerated since the demand is not so huge.

This is why the Bulgarian government guarantees to every Bulgarian citizen the free access to cultural heritage, compensating the artists by other means that we have discussed in section 5.1. Compensatory remuneration. We have also seen that this compensation is quite insufficient, due to the too low percentage rate implied in the legislation as compensation from manufacturers and importers of blank information carriers to the organizations, representing artists.

44 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Source: Mimiandeunice.com; Copyleft Nina Paley

Yet, there is another problem in Bulgaria, preventing movie makers from making successful movies and recovering their investments. There are only two cinema companies - Al- exandra Films and Cinema City, which hold about 90 percent of all movie theaters in the country (Mediapool, 2012). They require a fee of € 625 excluding VAT to broadcast a movie in their theaters, which is a huge tax for the moviemakers (Lukanov, 2012). One of the most promi- nent filmmakers in Bulgaria Lyudmil Todorov (2012) insists on investigating the monopoly of these two theaters:

“Currently, they [Alexandra Films and Cinema City] collect nearly 70 percent of the revenues of a movie and leave 30 per cent for its distributors, producers, co- producers, writers (writers, directors, composers, cameramen and actors) and, last but not least, - allowance for the Bulgarian government, which has funded the film with taxpayers' money. Once the distributors, who are often satellite companies of those theaters, take their share, for the filmmakers and institutions that have funded the movie remain between 5 and 10 percent of revenue.”, Todorov (2012)

The same can be said about other intellectual products as well. It seems like it is not only the users, who pirate movies online, that “rob” the artists and moviemakers and put obstacles for their successful realisation. Online piracy still remains a huge problem on the agenda, but apparently right holders face further obstacles in gathering their deserved profit.

7.2. Recommendations

In this chapter we examine different possible solutions for handling the current situation about digital piracy. We draw suggestions based on the research we did in chapters three, four and five, and give examples of different perspectives on the matter of online sharing.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Recommendation 1

Several authors have already expressed their opinion that the problems can be solved by assigning the responsibility of Internet providers. They claim that Internet providers should monitor the content in the Internet for distribution of copyrighted works without permission and to restrict the access to such files/websites (Mediapool, 2007).

In theory this could be indeed a very effective solution once and for all, because Inter- net providers have data on all the traffic and all the actions that their customers make online. Thus, it will be impossible for anyone to hide behind the anonymity of the Internet. In reality, however, it remains almost impossible to implement. In 2011 the European Court of Justice ruled that Internet service providers cannot be obliged to filter content because for the sake of filtering they will need to install complicated and expensive equipment and systems at their own expense (BBC, 24 November 2011). Moreover, a huge disadvantage in the case of Bulgar- ia is that there is a large number of Internet providers - about 1,500 (Dnevnik, 2010). This complicates the proposed procedure and makes it hard for the government to implement and monitor it.

Recommendation 2

A more effective solution might be to make changes in the articles of LCNR concerning the compensation for free usage of copyrighted works. The mistake of the legislature to remove the generation of such remuneration from manufacturers and importers of recording and reproducing apparatus of digital media and to leave this task only to those of blank information carriers was undeniable. Moreover, 1.5 percent of the supply value of the blank information carriers is quite insufficient to compensate all the right holders for the free distribution of their works.

The government must make the necessary changes in the law so that the authors and creators may still get the deserved financial benefits for their work. This will greatly contribute to the improvement of the situation. Given the fact that producers and importers of recording and reproducing apparatus, along with those of blank information carriers, benefit from the high levels of online piracy (or in other words, from the free distribution of the authors’ works), it will be only fair that they devote a portion of it to the right holders. Keeping this in mind, I see no disadvantages of this procedure, and no reasons for the legal authorities not to make the necessary changes in the law.

Recommendation 3

Another appropriate solution in this regard would be the imposition of additional taxes that users pay to Internet providers for their services, then the amount to be added to the fund of compensatory remuneration. If fees are low enough according to the income level of

46 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Bulgarians, it will not cause any disruption in society. This will be a great advantage for this plan, since the users will not be affected by the small taxes they will pay. Still, the gathered sums will eventually be large enough to contribute to the gathering of the artists’ deserved rewards, since every Internet user in Bulgaria will have to pay them. Thus, there are no hidden disadvantages for any of the parties involved.

Recommendation 4:

The government as well as some private organizations for protection of intellectual property rights have made several attempts to deal with online piracy by trying to influence users’ behaviour. Up until now there have been two significant campaigns to protect authors’ rights on the Internet. One is governmental, and the other is private.

In 2007 the government embarked on a campaign to protect intellectual property on the Internet under the name "Piracy robs", supported by 29 Bulgarian artists. As an example that digital piracy is stealing from creators and they are left without their profit, there was an exhibition of nude photos of the authors which were later distributed through the web and through posters on billboards and public buildings11. Unfortunately, there was not any evidence that the campaign had any effect on reducing the scale of the problem and soon the campaign was forgotten.

The other campaign was held in 2012 by the most watched Bulgarian television chan- nel – BTV (www. btv.bg), which launched a paid online video portal (www.voyo.bg), that aired TV show episodes one week before the actual TV broadcast. The torrent sites (Zamunda.net in particular), however, pirated the shows, and so BTV launched a campaign against piracy called "Fair Play" (www.fairplay.bg). The campaign was comparing pirating to crimes like breaking into houses, burglary and car theft. Many Internet bloggers12 and users of social network websites mocked the campaign a lot, which brought many negative effects to the actor Assen Blatechki13 and musician Krisko14, who represented the campaign. As a result BTV lost some serious market share in the months of the campaign - May-August 2012 (Gemius, gemiusAu- dience, 2012).

As it can be seen public campaigns (both governmental and private) have rather negative effect on the situation. People do not like the oppression towards them, given the fact

11 Some of the pictures are available at http://www.vesti.bg/?tid=40&oid=955520 12 In Appendix 5 you will find a table of the most popular posts against the campaign. 13 Commercial available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcfOMxE0LkY. 14 Commercial available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1svd87vaPM.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA that by law they have the right to download movies and music for personal use as much as they like. If campaigns are going to be launched then they should not be addressed towards the people that download intellectual products, but towards those who upload them without the needed permission for that and towards the owners of websites that broadcast or distribute them for their own profit. It is the distribution of works, and not the personal reproduction of them, that is a crime.

Recommendation 5

There is a widespread belief that in order for the online piracy to be reduced intellectual products at lower prices should be launched. Dimitrov (2013) says that if people had a choice between legally obtaining intellectual products at low prices and illegally downloading them from torrent portals, most people would certainly choose the legal option. Thus, on one hand, users will still have the guaranteed by law access to cultural heritage, and on the other hand - the authors will receive their deserved remuneration, because the better a product is, the more people will be willing to pay the cost for it. These small costs, when accumulated, will lead to higher profit for the author.

Unfortunately, at this moment it seems like no company or organization is willing to take on this task because of the huge investments that will be needed for promoting this new for the Bulgarians idea and changing their online habits and attitude.

One example for the effectiveness of this solution is the experiment that American comedian Louis Szekely did in 2011. He invested about $250,000 himself for producing his own show, instead of signing a contract with a publisher. Then he uploaded the show on his website and started selling it for only $5 without any anti-pirating measures, clearly expressing his faith that people would buy it, rather than pirate it. The result was amazing - he made 1 million dollar sales in just twelve days (https://buy.louisck.net/).

Recommendation 6

Source: Mimiandeunice.com; Copyleft Nina Paley

48 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

There are authors who would rather spread their intellectual products for free, rather than charging their fans for them. Thus more people have access to their works, they gain more popularity and then lead to indirect benefits. A good example of this ideology is the online comics about Mimi and Eunice (Mimiandeunice.com) which are used in the present master thesis as well. The author - American cartoonist Nina Paley, spreads her intellectual product freely and is not demanding any protection of her works. On the website of her comics the author expresses her strong belief that "copying is an act of love" and encourages her fans to share her product. Furthermore, she adds:

“You are free to copy, share, sell, remix, modify, fold, bend, staple, and muti- late Mimi & Eunice but you may not prohibit others from doing the same with any resulting copies or “derivative works“. You may include Mimi & Eunice in larger, copy-restricted works (like textbooks, magazines, movies, TV shows, etc.) but the Mimi & Eunice parts must remain under the Share Alike license (aka Copyleft). This is easily achieved by marking the Mimi & Eunice parts “CC-BY-SA Nina Paley” or “copyleft Nina Paley,” even while the rest of your work is under copyright or whatever godawful restrictive license you use.”, Nina Paley (2010)

Different comics are divided into categories, one of which concerns the issues of copyright. It is called "Intellectual property" and there are 108 different comics illustrating that copyright protection is unlawful and that intellectual products should be free for use and share. No doubt, all this contributes for the popularity of the characters Mimi and Eunice, for whom the search engine Google.com generates nearly 1,000,000 results (retrieved on 2013/04/19). Thus the different intellectual products that are distributed freely can be used more often in various fields and for different purposes, contributing to enrich the cultural exchange between people all around the world.

Karakehayov (2013) supports the statement that authors should be more open- minded about the use of Internet and distribute their works for free themselves. He gives as an example the most successful Bulgarian music style at the moment (pop-folk music). The companies that manage the singers’ rights in this genre release the songs for free in Youtube.com and its Bulgarian analogue - Vbox7.com, and do not protect them against piracy in any way. This leads to a lot of popularity, millions of fans that have free access to the music and hence very successful concerts. Moreover, because of the extreme popularity of the songs, the performers are often invited to sing at clubs or private parties, where they can get

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA up to 3000 euro per night15. Given the small market in Bulgaria, no artist could accumulate such financial profit by simply selling their CD or DVD.

Krushkov (2013) also expresses his defense of this view and says that if a product of a right holder, be it a book, song, movie or similar, is qualitative and good, he will get his deserved profits. And the last but not least advantage of this method, is that through the free and quick distribution of content on the Internet enormous popularity can be generated over a very short period of time, which always leads to secondary financial benefits.

A huge challenge that this method faces is the unwillingness of the authors to release their products for free sharing, and would rather rely on the law for protection of their rights. They still have doubts in this system, because it is still not popular enough yet. It will probably take time until right holders become more open-minded on the topic and try to take advantage of all the secondary profits and benefits that online sharing offers.

7.3. Answers to research questions

In the beginning of the thesis we put forward some questions connected with online abuse of intellectual property rights in Bulgaria, which we have reviewed in detail during the thesis. Here we provide answers to these questions, based upon the research carried out in the thesis.

1) How serious are the problems of online abuse of intellectual property rights in Bulgaria?

From the examples we have given so far of popular torrent portals (section 4.1.), the rate of activity of their users (section 4.2.), and the rapid rise of new torrent files daily (section 4.1.), we can draw the conclusion that online piracy is quite prevalent in the country. Having already compared the software piracy rate in Bulgaria with that of the other EU countries , as well as the popularity of torrent website in the 27 member states (chapter six), we can draw the conclusion that the current situation in Bulgaria is more critical than any other EU country. Surely, this has consequences for the right holders who cannot control the dissemination of their own works, which by law belongs only to them.

15 An example list of the popularity of pop folk singers and the differences in prices for inviting performers at private parties may be seen in Appendix 4.

50 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

2) What is the public opinion on the issue of unauthorized file sharing over the In- ternet?

The late reflection of the problems of online piracy in the Bulgarian legislation as well as the slow jurisdiction of the judicial system allow Bulgarian users to feel comfortable downloading pirated content on the Internet. The strong reactions of the public against the campaigns for reducing online piracy in the country show that people do not want their rights to be limited or their online actions monitored. The financial inability of most Bulgarians to regularly go to the cinema or concerts and spend money on buying CDs and DVDs, as well as the lack of any alternatives to legally obtain intellectual products in accordance with their financial condition, leads users to the last option which is eventually downloading them from torrent portals (section 7.1.).

3) To what extend are the right holders affected financially from the unauthorized usage of their works?

Karakehayov (2013) states that in Bulgaria intellectual property is violated so often because of the low income of the average household. Most Bulgarians cannot afford to pay for DVDs and CDs on a regular basis. They go to the cinema and to music concerts only when they are sure that product will be worth the money. If there were no piracy, then probably these households would not spend much money to legally obtain media anyway. Therefore, it is not necessarily correct to assume that any downloaded song or movie or other work should necessarily mean losses of funds for the right holders.

Moreover, based on the research conducted in section 4.2. about the movie Twilight: Breaking Down - Part 2, it turned out that the rate of pirating of a certain work depends largely on its presence on torrent trackers and, specifically, on its presence in the list of most recent and popular files of the website Zamunda.net. In other words a large percentage of the users download mostly the files that are offered there and only because of the ability to do it for free, not because they intentionally want to save money by not going to the cinema. Although the Twilight movie was uploaded many times in different torrent trackers and was downloaded tens of thousands of times, no person according to whom the movie is worthy and valuable would have waited three months until it finally appears on a particular torrent website. From this perspective, it should not be assumed that the overall downloads of the different Twilight torrent files equal to the same number of losses of sales of cinema tickets and DVD-s, as the right holders often claim.

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Source: Mimiandeunice.com; Copyleft Nina Paley

Further support for this claim is the fact that in the second most popular torrent portal in Bulgaria - Arenabg.com, the movie was uploaded on 18.11.2012 (only 2 days after the official premiere in Bulgaria!). By the time the movie appeared on Zamunda.net on 14.02.2013 there were another seven torrent files of the same movie uploaded in Arenabg.com. By this date the eight torrents there have altogether generated a total of 20,307 downloads. This amount was reached and hugely exceeded only on the first day of uploading of the movie on Zamunda.net. This means that the majority of users were not looking specifically for the movie on the Internet, because if they did, they would have downloaded it long ago through Are- nabg.com, and the file on Zamunda.net would have never gained such popularity. This is additional evidence that the right holders do not lose much profit because of the people that download their works online. It is obvious that those people not only were not willing to pay money to see the movie, but did not even bother looking for it online until it finally appeared on their favourite torrent website.

Due to the reasons above, it is very difficult for us to determine the exact amount of the potential income that the right holders have lost16. Still, it is certain that they suffer some losses due to free file sharing on the Internet. However, when it comes to movies, it should not be forgotten that the authors lose income also because of the monopoly of the two theater holders in Bulgaria, who charge them with huge fees for the broadcast of their films. Nor should be neglected the extremely low compensation for the free use of all kinds of intellectual works, leaving Bulgarian authors in a very difficult position.

4) Is the Bulgarian government doing everything possible to prevent abuse of intellectual rights on the Internet? Are the measures taken by the government and

16 Nor have there been a research on the matter (Dimitrov, 2013)

52 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

the right holders successful in preventing people from being involved in online piracy?

Campaigns to reduce digital piracy have not been successful or effective (section 7.2.). Eventually, all they do is to exacerbate the tension between two various parties - on one hand, online users assert their right to privacy and protection of their access to cultural works, and on the other, we see the creators of intellectual products, who are feeling robbed and harmed by the unprecedented dissemination of their works on the Internet. The government is in the middle, trying to balance the situation, but often not very effectively. As a result of these attempts of the government, online users feel pressured by the media which condemns their actions as unlawful and unworthy, while the right holders accuse the state for inadequate enforcement of the existing laws and not enough compensation for the free use of their works.

5) Is the existing legislation on copyright protection at the moment sufficient or not? What changes, if necessary, should be made to make the certain laws and acts more effective?

LCNR, though fully synchronized with existing EU legislation, remains hard for implementation in practice. Based on the research in Chapter five it became clear that changes concerning the jurisdiction and law enforcement should be made, leading to the capture of the offenders - in this case these are the owners of the maintained torrent portals and the first uploaders of protected works.

However, it is advisable changes to be made in art. 26 of LCNR (concerning the compensation for free use of protected works), increasing the percentage for remuneration owed by manufacturers and importers of blank information carriers in Bulgaria, as well as to impose the same responsibility to manufacturers and importers of recording and reproducing apparatus of digital media and Internet providers in Bulgaria too. This will lead to more revenue for the right holders and will help to bring justice for the authors. Another good practice in this area would be to enforce an additional tax to Internet providers by the end users, as previously explained, which also can be added to the compensation fund.

Then, since 30 percent of the collected compensatory amounts are transferred to the account of the National Fund "Culture", the government may use this money to support an organization in creating, or to create itself, a website through which people will be offered the ability to legally obtain at a lower cost the same intellectual products that they would otherwise pirate. This is very important because for now people have only two alternatives – either give a huge amount of money on regularly going to the cinema and buying DVDs, or download the product for free, depriving the authors of their profit. If such website is launched, then

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA people will have a third alternative that will be in the middle of the two present options. This will be a solution that will successfully balance between the interests of the audience and the justice for the authors.

Furthermore, it is advisable that the government establish a governmental or private body to monitor the Internet for violations of intellectual property rights, instead of relying on the goodwill of the website owners or the efforts of the right holders themselves.

Finally, right holders should become more open-minded about the different alternatives for handling the problem and instead of trying to impose more strict protection of their copyrights, to embrace all the advantages that the Internet can offer them and its limitless potential.

None of the above solutions excludes the others. Rather, optimal results for the improvement of the current situation of authors, creators and right holders can be achieved if all the proposals are implemented simultaneously.

7.4. Summary

In the era of information and communication technologies almost every object of art- istry and creativity can be digitized - movies, music, design, photos, sketches, novels, etc. With popularization of access to information on the Internet all around the world and the unlimited number of users at the same time put a particularly acute issue of providing adequate legal protection of holders of intellectual property rights. This question excites people from all ju- risdictions without exception. Despite the efforts made by the national courts, however, protection against infringement is not yet efficient enough. These are the conclusions that I have come to due to the researches that I have covered in the literature review and by the use of the mentioned methodology to examine the current situation.

All the data about the torrent websites showed how widespread online piracy in the country is. Although we have examined only the largest and most popular torrent portals in Bulgaria (Zamunda.net and Arenabg.com), they are just two of many websites which distribute unauthorized content on the Internet. Bulgarian users, in turn, are already quite used to these processes and for them the downloading of copyrighted works has turned into something completely normal, ordinary and insignificant. All this creates difficulties for law enforcement authorities to deal with the escalating situation, who, as we have already deter- mined, meet many obstacles in their attempts to deal effectively with the problems of online piracy.

Undoubtedly, the protection of intellectual property rights is essential, the widespread online piracy negatively affects and harms the creators and right holders, but technologies are developing fast and the legislation and law enforcement processes must take into account the

54 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA new situations, without harming the human rights. This may be done implementing some (if not all) of the suggestions that we have discussed in the previous section.

7.5. Contribution to knowledge

The numerous controversial issues on the matter cannot and should not be addressed by a single study, but there should be a widespread academic debate by those people and authorities that have legislative initiatives. This debate must occur in the presence of all parties affected by or involved in the illegal distribution of copyrighted works on the Internet. Examining in this thesis the most critical and controversial issues of online piracy, I want to focus people’s attention on these problems with the hope that the conclusions which we came to will be heard and taken into account.

I express my hope that some, if not all, of the proposed recommendations would be considered by the people who have jurisdictional authority and supported by the interested parties. The problems in this relatively new area for Bulgaria are indeed very confusing because of their complexity, but if the government improves the law enforcement of the law through some of the recommendations described, and if the right holders focus on the new and modern solutions that have already proved to be effective, positive results will not be late.

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%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B6%D0%B5-%D0%B4%D0%B0-%D1%81%D0%B5- %D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8- %D1%81%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BE-%D1%81- %D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8- %D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B3%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%BD%D0%B8- %D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B8%D0% B2%D0%B8-news197849.html, - retrieved on: 4 February 2013 31. Mediapool.bg. (200 ). ‘Ministry of Interior pressures Internet Service Providers to restrict access to torrent sites’. Journal available: http://www.mediapool.bg/%D0%BC%D0%B2%D1%80- %D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BD%D0%B0- %D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%82- %D0%B4%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%87%D0%B8%D1%86%D0% B8-%D0%B4%D0%B0- %D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0% B0%D1%82-%D0%B4%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8A%D0%BF-%D0%B4%D0%BE- %D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82- %D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5-news127000.html, retrieved on: 31 January 2013 32. National Statistical Institute (2012). ‘IT society – data’. Data available: http://www.nsi.bg/otrasal.php?otr=17, retrieved on 16 February 2013. 33. News.bg. (2012). ‘CDCOC shuts down Arena and Zamunda’. Journal available: http://news.ibox.bg/material/id_523502700/fpage_1/ - retrieved on: 30 January 2013. 34. Newton, N. (2010). ‘The use of semi-structured interviews in qualitative research: strengths and weaknesses ‘, Study available: http://www.academia.edu/1561689/The_use_of_semi- structured_interviews_in_qualitative_research_strengths_and_weaknesses, retrieved on 19 February 2013. 35. Nina Paley Copyleft, ‘Mimi & Eunice Comics’, Mimiandeunice.com, 36. Pramatarov, Y. (200 ). ‘Ontology of copyright on the Internet’. Study available: http://yasen.lindeas.com/files/Yasen_Pramatarov- ontology_of_copyright_in_Internet-cc-by.pdf, retrieved on 16 February 2013. 37. Quesenberry, K. (2010). ‘Are Intellectual Property Rights Wrong?’. Journal available: http://addingtonoise.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/are-intellectual-property-rights- wrong/, retrieved on 27 January 2013. 38. Ritchie, J. and Lewis. J. (eds.) (2003) ‘Qualitative Research Practice: A Guide for Social Science Students and Researchers’. Sage Publications, London, ISBN-13: 978- 0761971108

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APPENDICES:

Appendix 1: International treaties or acts on copyright and neighboring rights, to which Bulgaria is a party

1. Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886), ratified by Bulgaria in 1974 2. The Universal Copyright Convention (or UCC), adopted at Geneva (1952), ratified by Bulgaria in 1974 3. Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations (1961), ratified by Bulgaria in 1995 4. Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Du- plication of Their Phonograms, adopted at Geneva (1971), ratified by Bulgaria in 1995 5. Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property, adopted at Marrakesh, (1996), ratified by Bulgaria in 2000. 6. Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe in 1985. Ratified by Bulgaria in 1991 7. European Convention on Transfrontier Television in 1989, ratified by Bulgaria in 1997 8. Protocol amending the European Convention on Transfrontier Television in 1998, ratified by Bulgaria in 2000 9. European Convention on cinematographic co-production in 1992, ratified by Bulgaria in 2004 10. WIPO Copyright Treaty (Geneva, 1996), ratified by Bulgaria in 2001 11. WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (Geneva, 1996), ratified by Bulgaria in 2001 12. Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) - Marrakesh 1994, ratified by Bulgaria in 1996 13. European Directive 91/250/EC on the protection of computer programs 14. European Directive 96/9/EC on the protection of databases 15. European Directive 93/83/EEC on the coordination of certain rules concerning copyright and rights related to copyright applicable to satellite broadcasting and transmission by cable 16. European Directive 92/100/EEC on rental and lending rights, as well as certain rights related to copyright in the field of intellectual property 17. European Directive 93/98/EC on the harmonization of the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights 18. European Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

19. European Directive 2001/84/EC remuneration author resale of works of fine art 20. European Directive 89/552/EEC "Television without Frontiers", as amended by Di- rective 97/36/EC

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Appendix 2: Interview questionnaire:

1. In your opinion, is the Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights sufficient to guarantee authors and creators’ rights on the Internet Are there problems in the law enforcement in this area? 2. Is the Law on Copyright and Neighboring Rights more in favour of the public or the private right holders? 3. What are the biggest challenges for right holders and law enforcement authorities in Bulgaria emerging from the new technologies? 4. Who do you think should be held liable for the abuse of intellectual rights on the Internet? 5. What suggestions and recommendations would you give in order for the current situation of online piracy in Bulgaria to be improved? 6. Are there any additional issues connecting the matter that you would like to bring to our attention?

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Appendix 3: Development of a torrent file in Zamunda.net for a period 12 days

The.Twilight.Saga.Breaking.Dawn.Part.2.2012.NTSC.DVD5.BGSUB-LYCAN.torrent

Date Downloads Seeders Leechers

2013-02-18 588 139 29

2013-02-19 728 154 15

2013-02-20 794 110 6

2013-02-21 825 115 2

2013-02-22 855 104 7

2013-02-23 889 172 14

2013-02-24 905 84 3

2013-02-25 949 107 4

2013-02-26 958 110 1

2013-02-27 968 82 2

2013-02-28 976 97 7

2013-03-01 985 114 4

64 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Appendix 4: Price list of performers from ARA Music

ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

Appendix 5: Table of the most popular posts against the campaign of bTV “FairPlay” (retrieved on 2013/04/02)

Name of post Author URL

1. NSS uttered: bTV, Boyko Nikolov http://boykonikolov.com/2012/10/16/%D0%BD you’re not fair... nor is %D1%81%D1%81-%D1%81%D0%B5- this FairPlay! %D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B8%D0%B7%D 0%BD%D0%B5%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%85%D0% B0-btv- %D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%B5%D1%82%D 0%BE-%D0%BD%D0%B5-%D0%B5- %D1%87%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D 0%BE/

2. For or against the cam- (Forum) http://windows7bg.com/topic/7792- paign of bTV for Fair- %D0%B7%D0%B0-%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B8- Play %D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B8%D 0%B2- %D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%B0%D 0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%B0- %D0%BD%D0%B0-btv-fair-play/

3. Let’s get rid of these Georgi Georgiev http://mixmedia.bg/post/140-da-svalim-tezi- ads in the name of reklami-v-imeto-na-fairplay/25-marketing-i- "FairPlay"! reklama

4. FairPlay by bTV – what Kiryl Yovev http://eu- an irony! bloger.eu/%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%82% D0%B8%D1%8F/530-fair-play- %D0%BE%D1%82-%D0%B1%D1%82%D0%B2- %D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B2%D0%B0- %D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B8%D 1%8F

5. For Blatechki, the hun- Boris Loukanov http://www.borisloukanov.com/blatetchki-btv- ger of the monopolists piratstvo/ and the witless campaign against piracy of bTV

6. For bTV, Krisko and FrogNews.bg http://frognews.bg/news_46611/%D0%97%D0 why THIS is not fair %B0%20%D0%91%D0%A2%D0%92,%20%D0%9 A%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE% 20%D0%B8%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%89%D0

66 ABUSE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET IN BULGARIA

%BE%20%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B0%2 0%D0%9D%D0%95%20%D0%95%20%D1%87% D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D0%BE

7. The FairPlay of bTV for Dilian Ianakiev http://www.news- copyright protection sat.com/index.php/novini/drugi/lubopitno/item violates the Code of /1608-fairplay-%D0%BD%D0%B0-btv- Ethics %D0%B7%D0%B0- %D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%89%D0%B8%D1%82%D 0%B0-%D0%BD%D0%B0- %D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%82%D0%BE%D1%80%D 1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B5- %D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0- %D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%83%D1%88%D 0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B0- %D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%BD%D 0%B8%D1%8F- %D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BA%D 1%81

8. FairPlay – yeah right… Ivan Vankov http://gatakka.eu/?p=1077

9. FairPlay – where are we Gateto http://gateto.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/fairp going with this?!? lay- %D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%8A%D0%B4%D 0%B5- %D0%BE%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D 0%BC%D0%B5/

10. Another stupidity from (Forum) http://forums.data.bg/index.php?showtopic=20 bTV 85899

11. Are the artists playing Momchil Elen- http://ekipbg.com/2012/08/13/artisti/ fair? kov

12. VOYO + Fair Play = Fair Cvet Trifonova http://cvet- Fail! trifonova.blogspot.com/2012/05/voyo-fairplay-fair-fail.html

13. This is not fair, bTV! Avtora.com http://www.avtora.com/news/2013/01/16/buls atkom_taka_ne_e_chestno_btv