Saturday, December 22, 2007 Estonia’s fight vs. Internet piracy By Clint Fabiosa & Andrew Ong I Protect
ESTONIA is a small country (area: 45,100 square meters) in Northern Europe which has land borders to the south with Latvia and to the east with Russia. It is separated from Finland in the north by the Gulf of Finland and from Sweden in the west by the Baltic Sea.
In Estonia, the widespread problem is Internet piracy. In 2004, Estonia’s Police Board and Customs and Tax Board signed an agreement to improve the country’s intellectual property rights (IPR) regime through the exchange of information on operations, investigations and procedures.
The agreement also involves an undertaking to work closely with the country’s leading IPR non-government organization, the Estonian Organization for Copyright Protection (EOCP), to gather information and secure evidence on IPR infringement.
In 2005, the Estonian Police stepped up its investigations and prosecutions on Internet piracy. As a result, about 50 websites are closed every month because of its pirated content.
