IRII Special Report on Intellectual Property Crime in Lithuania

Intellectual Property (copyright and related rights) related crime - intellectual property piracy - has decreased for the second consecutive year in 2007. Statistics on the number of intellectual property crime suggests collected by the Lithuanian Ministry of Interior suggests that the number of registered intellectual property related crime dropped by a staggering 18.3% (from 93 to 76), and even after dropping 7.9% in 2006.



These decreases demonstrate the effectiveness of anti-piracy effort by the Lithuanian criminal police and other authorities. The achievement is especially important considering that 2005-2007 were marked by the major effort (including two specialized PHARE projects) aimed at improving the investigation of the intellectual property crime in Lithuania, strengthening the capacity and competence of the police and prosecutor's force in tackling intellectual property crime. These efforts have increased trained staff numbers, improved detection rates, as well as the investigation capabilities.

Although the investigation success rate is also showing some improvement, the slight decrease in 2006-2007 actually demonstrates the emerging complexity of the intellectual property crime or more precisely gradual movement from the flea market and corporate piracy to electronic and internet piracy, which is markedly more difficult to investigate.

The other significant factor contributing for the drop in intellectual property crime is clearly the improving economic well-being of Lithuanian society and growing business profitability, which allows purchases of business software. The growing numbers of free alternatives in the desktop software market may also be a contributing factor.

Based on the Lithuanian Criminal Code, intellectual property crime in Lithuania includes any dealing of intellectual property (copyrighted content or content protected by related rights, including computer software, audiovisual content, etc.) done with commercial purpose (including any unauthorized corporate use of intellectual property objects), where value of the unauthorized content exceeds the equivalent of ~3600 EUR.