Piracy in Russia

Intellectual property fraud is big business in Russia, most notably the piracy of recordings and computer software. Mark Galeotti, director of the Organised Russian and Eurasian Crime Research Unit at Keele University, looks at the scale of the problem and what is being done to combat it.

Dr Mark Galeotti is Director of the Organised Russian and Eurasian Crime Research Unit at Keele University, and former adviser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

The manufacture and traffic in pirated computer software and music and other recordings is a huge and global business. It ranges from the relatively benign copying of music by individual listeners through to, increasingly, industrial-scale counterfeiting operations run or bankrolled by organised crime. This is, of course, fraud on several levels. It defrauds the original owners of their intellectual property (IP) rights. However, buyers who purchase counterfeit goods in the mistaken belief that they are genuine are also being defrauded. Such goods are also typically sold through un- or under-regulated retail outlets (such as car boot sales and open air markets) and distributed without payment of import or export dues. Indeed, such merchandise is increasingly being trafficked along routes originally established for smuggling drugs or illegal migrants. Thus fraud is also being perpetrated against state laws and customs regimes.