Russia bites the bullet and rallies to defend
West Australian, Page: 73. Saturday, 24 October 2009
Russia has been a major market for counterfeit music, movies and computer programs from around the world, but at least one Russian product has been pirated worldwide: the Kalashnikov assault rifle.
Russia will step up action to defend the copyright of the Kalashnikov, which is made without licence by dozens of manufacturers around the world, Anatoly Isaikin, the chief of the nation’s arms-trading monopoly said.
The Kalashnikov has become the world’s most widely distributed weapon, with some 100 million made in 60 years of production, but only about half of them are the genuine, locally made article.
The counterfeit production of Kalashnikovs outside Russia has caused financial losses, tarnished the brand because of poor quality and dented the country’s prestige abroad, Mr Isaikin said.
“Their quality bears no comparison to a Kalashnikov produced in Russia,” Mr Isaikin said at a shooting range in the town of Klimovsk, 25km south of Moscow Mr Isaikin said his company, Rosoboronexport, was working to draft agreements with foreign countries that would protect copyright for Kalashnikovs and other Russian weapons. There are about 30 foreign manufacturers who are currently making Kalashnikovs, he said.
It was not until 1997 that the Izhmash factory in the Ural Mountains city of Izhevsk, which makes Kalashnikovs, secured a state patent for the weapon and began pressing foreign manufacturers to respect its copyright.
Izhmash director Vladimir Grodetsky said the company has faced an uphill battle, losing an estimated $US400 million ($430 million) to $US500 million a year from counterfeit Kalashnikov makers.
He said that Venezuela, which has struck a deal to buy 100,000 rifles and produce more under licence, is now the only fully legitimate licence holder. Other Kalashnikov makers, including East European nations and China, have signalled readiness to respect Russian copyright but have said that the deals should be negotiated on a government level, Mr Grodetsky said.
Mr Isaikin wouldn’t say how long it could take to negotiate such a deal with China, a major maker of Kalashnikovs.
The Soviet Union provided China with weapons technology until the two communist giants turned into bitter rivals in the 1 960s. Moscow and Beijing rebuilt their ties in the early 1 990s, and China again became a top customer for Russian weapons, buying fighter jets, missiles, destroyers and submarines worth billions of dollars.
But China has reduced purchases of Russian weapons in recent years and started producing unlicenced copies of some of them, including the Su-27 fighter jet, signalling that Russia may find it hard to defend its copyright.
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