Cubans pirate U.S. TV and movies, saying the embargo made them do it

Cubans pirate U.S. TV and movies, saying the embargo made them do it
By Nick Miroff October 18 at 12:00 AM

HAVANA — There's little question that 50-plus years of U.S. economic
sanctions have taken a heavy toll on Cuba's factories, banking system
and hospitals.

But for Cuban fans of American movies and television, it's been a pretty
darn great run.

Flip to the TV guide in Granma, the Communist party's daily newspaper,
and you'll see a primetime lineup featuring reruns of "Cold Case,"
"MythBusters," even "Seinfeld." Now playing at government-owned cinemas:
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "Toy Story 2" in 3D and, quite
fittingly, "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides."

None of it is properly licensed or paid for by Cuba, whose government
has had little compunction about pirating good programming from a
longtime foe with a vast legislative apparatus designed to choke its
economy.

Washington and Havana restored diplomatic relations in July, but
rebuilding mutual respect for copyrights, trademarks and other
intellectual property is one of many still-pending issues.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said it was not one of the topics
she brought up with Cuban authorities during her visit to the island
last week, but she said it was on the agenda for future talks. At a news
conference after her departure, Cuban officials said the U.S. sanctions
remain so restrictive that discussions of copyright protections are
premature.

"There are so many (trade) issues to resolve, and until we establish
some basic things, it's going to be very difficult to talk about
copyrights and trademarks," said Ana Teresa Igarza, the director of
Cuba's Mariel free trade zone project, which is courting foreign investment.

"Even if Cuba has the money to make the payments, we don't have any way
to transfer the funds," said Igarza, referring to U.S. restrictions on
the use of the dollar by Cuban banks.

Cuba is a signatory to the major international treaties protecting
intellectual property rights, and trade experts say the Castro
government has generally done a good job enforcing protections of U.S.
products and brands like Coca-Cola or Nike.

Media content has been treated somewhat differently, though, perhaps due
to a socialist ethos that views cultural output — and pharmaceutical
breakthroughs — as a kind of public good. Television programming on the
island has no advertisements, and like concerts and sporting events,
movie tickets are practically free, so it isn't as if the Cuban
government is turning a big profit on Disney movies and Discovery
Channel documentaries.

While the Cuban government has registered thousands of trademarks with
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, some of the most bitter and
litigious disputes involve the island's famous cigar and rum brands,
such as Cohiba and Havana Club.

Despite being shut out of the biggest market in the world by U.S.
sanctions, Cuba's premium cigars and rum bring in hundreds of millions
of dollars in revenue from other countries each year. Recent changes by
the Obama administration allow U.S. travelers who visit the island
legally to bring back those items in limited quantities for personal use.

Meanwhile, the Castro government has been battling in U.S. courts for
nearly 20 years against Dominican-based producers of Cohibas, as well as
rum rival Bacardi Corp., which sells the Havana Club brand. Those
products are recognized as Cuban trademarks virtually everywhere else in
the world, and experts say U.S. courts are likely to also do so as trade
relations normalize.

"As the United States moves past aggressive, punitive measures, I think
Cuba will be more willing to accept agreements that protect property
across the board," said Robert L. Muse, an attorney in Washington who
specializes in U.S.-Cuba trade laws.

Muse said that U.S. sanctions against Cuba do not prohibit payments for
the use of media content, because the U.S. Free Trade in Ideas Act of
1994 allows for the sale or export of informational materials, even to
countries under embargo.

"If they want to put an episode of 'Seinfeld' on Cuban state TV or show
'The Godfather,' they can negotiate and pay a fee according to
international protocols," said Muse. "But, perhaps understandably, no
one has been overly concerned about such niceties as whether Cuba has a
royalty agreement to show a U.S. sitcom."

Another possible factor in Cuba's behavior, he added, is its disdain for
U.S.-funded Radio and TV Martí, which beam anti-Castro news and
commentary to an island whose airwaves are tightly controlled by the
government.

"According to international telecommunications conventions, it's
unlawful to broadcast content into another nation's territory that
hasn't been agreed [to] or approved," said Muse. "So the Cuban view may
be: If you're going to send all this stuff in, we won't follow custom in
other areas, and we'll help ourselves to other American content."

Enforcement of intellectual property rights is an issue all over the
world, of course, and the Cuban government's appropriation of U.S. media
content is dwarfed by that of street-level Cuban bootleggers, who offer
DVDs, CDs and media files out in the open.

Hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of Cuban households subscribe
to a privately distributed weekly bundle of movies, shows, games and
apps known as "El Paquete" ("The Package") that circulates on memory
sticks and hard drives. Cuban authorities generally turn a blind eye.

The result is a culture of media piracy that is likely to persist long
after U.S.-Cuba trade relations are fixed. Rarely acknowledged is that
it also hurts Cuba's own directors, authors and creators.

Alejandro Brugués, whose award-winning zombie spoof "Juan of the Dead,"
became a sensation on the island in 2011, said a badly produced bootleg
of his film began circulating on the streets of Havana within days of
its premier in Spain.

The official release in Cuba was three months away. "We had the
crappiest possible copy of the film out there, and everyone was renting
it. There was nothing we could do," he said.

"I remember at some point one of my producers went to check on the
pirates in the street, and one of them was bragging he had the best copy
of the film there was in Cuba," said Brugués, who now lives in Los
Angeles. "My producer told him he was wrong, he had the best copy, as he
produced the movie. Then the pirate offered him $5,000 for a Blu-ray of
the film. I think now we should've taken it.

"I know some filmmakers don't care about piracy, as long their film
makes it to an audience," said Brugués. "But I do care, because for me
and the kind of film I make, international sales are very important. And
the problem with having a copy leaked in Cuba is that it immediately
makes its way to Miami, and over there someone just uploads it and
pretty much screws up your international sales."

Nick Miroff is a Latin America correspondent for The Post, roaming from
the U.S.-Mexico borderlands to South America's southern cone. He has
been a staff writer since 2006.

Source: Cubans pirate U.S. TV and movies, saying the embargo made them
do it - The Washington Post -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/cubans-pirate-us-tv-and-movies-saying-the-embargo-made-them-do-it/2015/10/16/0e0068e6-70ff-11e5-ba14-318f8e87a2fc_story.html