Copyright war in Iraq
By Bala Shah

Washington-based International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), founded in 1984, is a private sector coalition set up to protect the copyrights of US-based organizations. The IIPA coalition has seven member associations including the Business Software Alliance (BSA).  The BSA members include tech giants like Adobe, Apple, HP, IBM, EMC, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and others.

IIPA’s remaining 6 member associations include Association of American Publishers (AAP), the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

IIPA is ideologically driven by the need to protect the copyrights and profits of its members.  Everything else is secondary.

IIPA has often quoted some questionable research and it even gave a kick to the highly regarded open source movement in India.

IIPA members have different degrees of belief in hard law enforcement.  But it seems that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)’s war on copyright infringement is so extreme that they even want American soldiers fighting in Iraq to buy only legal movies from licensed Iraqi shops.

Torrentfreak is reporting

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While U.S. men and women put their lives at risk in Iraq, the MPAA has queried the military about the pirating habits of the soldiers stationed there. A declassified document from United States Central Command confirms that the MPAA is fighting a war of its own in the Middle East, one against copyright infringing soldiers.

Less known are the movie industry’s efforts to clamp down on copyright infringers who are defending their country’s interests on foreign soil. Because the availability of legal movies and TV-shows is limited in countries such as Iraq, soldiers sometimes use BitTorrent to get their fix, or buy pirated DVDs from local sellers.

The MPAA is not happy with these defiant soldiers. A declassified document from the United States Central Command shows that, a few years ago, the MPAA asked the military what they do to prevent soldiers from accessing pirated DVDs in Iraq.
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Not surprisingly, MPAA has been embarrassed by such over zealous crackdowns being made public.  This would be equivalent to Bollywood asking the Indian army to crackdown on soldiers watching pirated movies while fighting in Kashmir and Kargil.

Just recently IIPA (and its member MPAA) asked the US Government to do all it can to pressurize India to follow American copyright policies.