Delhi's Nehru Place and Gaffar Market along with Manish Market and Lamington Road in Mumbai as well as Chenoy Trade Center and Hong Kong Bazar in Hyderabad have been named as the ‘notorious markets' in India in the global piracy and violation of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), by the US Trade Representatives report.
The ‘2013 Out-of-Cycle Review of Notorious Markets' report points out that Nehru Place continues to be a prominent example of the numerous markets in major cities throughout India that are known for dealing in large volumes of pirated software, pirated optical media containing movies and music, and counterfeit goods.
Markets such as Manish Market and Lamington Road in Mumbai are branded as semi-organized markets where unauthorized copies of CDs and DVDs (mostly of Hindi movies but also English-language movies) are sold alongside the authorized versions. Hyderabad's Chenoy Trade Center (CTC) and Hong Kong Bazar house a large number of shops, the report claims, that sell computer hardware and software.
Having been a frequent visitor to all these six markets over the years, I agree with the findings of the report to a large extent. Piracy has been rampant in these markets over the years and despite assurances from many quarters nothing much has happened on the ground to rectify the situation. In fact, the biggest stakeholders (the partners operating from these markets itself) have paid little more than lip service to address this problem.
Therefore, I feel the condemnation issued by ADCTA (all of whose members are in Nehru Place) not just hypocritical but even self-defeating. The first step to solve any problem is to admit that one exists (and this is a big one); just hiding behind big words is more a line of politicians but not doing much to address the real concerns.
Rather than outright condemnation of the report as done by ADCTA, I would like to point out that while the plague needs to be eradicated from the Indian markets, it is highly presumptuous on part of the USTR report to tar the entire markets under one bad brush.
After all with daily business in the range of Rs 300 crore, Nehru Place (notwithstanding all its ills) is one of Asia's biggest IT hubs; even Lamington Road has been a tech go-to point for most Mumbaikars. Projecting these important markets as notorious places regularly in its reports smacks of a neo-colonial (I would even say racist) mentality.
After all, the USTR report should keep in mind the adage that ‘charity begins at home' and take care of piracy at its own backyard. I had personally experienced even worse piracy and grey market selling at small shops dotting both sides of Times Square in downtown Manhattan in New York. Similar hubs are there is Los Angeles on the west coast as well as Boston in the east and even Chicago in the middle. Even iPads have been offered to me ‘at what price I can afford'.
Before you start preaching, the Trade Report should practice that in its own den and look at removing these ‘pirates' from American cities. Otherwise these reports would always look like some colonial agendas.
(rajneeshd@cybermedia.co.in)