Some time ago Kazakh television showed a Caterpillar tractor rolling over a mountain of confiscated illegal compact discs. Law enforcement officials agree that occasional seizures of counterfeit products cannot stop the underground business of forged CDs, works of literature and art, and computer software. As estimated by experts, the average piracy rate in Kazakhstan has now reached 95%. Underground counterfeiting factories are able to make perfect copies of American hit films generate huge profits. The selling of unauthorized compact discs is much safer than dealing in drugs. The last 60 raids on CD shops and black market outlets produced illegal products worth 1.5 million tenge.

In order to ensure efficient and effective protection of intellectual property rights Kazakhstan must upgrade its 1996 copyright law and adapt it to international requirements. This is particularly important at a time when the country intends to join the World Trade Organization. The copyright law’s full implementation is obstructed by the inability of different law enforcement bodies to work out a concentrated policy for action. Another stumbling block is that the law states that if an international treaty ratified by Kazakhstan contains provisions differing from those of the national law, then the international treaty shall be given precedence.

Some experts argue that international provisions cannot be incorporated into Kazakh legislation without previously knowing what these provisions are. According to Sultan Orazalinov, Chairman of the Copyright Committee of the Kazakhstan Ministry of Justice, the production of counterfeit compact discs is now moving from Southeast Asia to the Newly Independent States. People involved in show business use sound recordings and video at will. Neither law nor property markings are deterrents for them. "We have at least 98 TV and radio stations all over Kazakhstan, but nobody knows for certain if they respect copyright laws," said Orazalinov.

It is often impossible for inexperienced Kazakh experts to tell an authentic CD from a forged one. An American copyright lawyer, Hank Baker, leader of the USAID project "Trade and Investment in Kazakhstan," suggested that Kazakh copyright law should include the "name and address" statutes, a provision that makes it a crime to sell audio and video products that do not carry the true name and address of the manufacturer on the label. Some officials are rather optimistic about Kazakhstan’s perspectives of reaching world standards in safeguarding intellectual property rights, but before that dream becomes reality, Kazakhstan still has a long way to go.

Marat Yermukanov, Correspondent, Tribuna, Petropavlosk Panorama, Almaty