Russians take aim at imitators of the AK-47 C. J. Chivers/NYT NYT Tuesday, July 27, 2004
IZHEVSK, Russia The bazaar in this industrial city shows why Western companies regard Russia as a land of piracy. . Bootlegged copies of new American movies - "King Arthur," "Troy" and "Spider-Man 2" - sell for $3. Photoshop 8.0, a $600 program in Western stores, fetches $2.75. . Markets like this, found throughout Russia, have been a longstanding subject of diplomatic complaint. Washington contends that Russian intellectual-property pirates cost the United States more than $1 billion a year. . Now Russia is striking back. A Russian industry and a product designer are asserting that the United States has been abetting intellectual-property pirates to suit its own needs, by directing copies of Russian merchandise around the world. The complaint is not about software or music. It makes no mention of movies or video games. It is about the Kalashnikov assault rifle, the most prolific firearm ever made. . "We see a great number of products which are named after Kalashnikov, my name," said Mikhail Kalashnikov, the weapon's original designer. "They are buying Kalashnikovs from other countries." . Since the collapses of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein's army in Iraq, the United States has been purchasing or arranging the transfer of thousands of knockoffs of Kalashnikovs, commonly referred to as AK-47s, to outfit new military and security forces in Kabul and Baghdad. . These rifles have not been made in Russia, where the arms industry holds patents for the weapon in several nations. Instead they have originated in weapons plants controlled by Eastern European states, each of which was a partner of Moscow's in Soviet days. . So begins a curious, impassioned and bizarre argument, involving the legacy of jockeying from the cold war, secretive arms deals, recent efforts to defeat Islamic insurgencies, and international business and patent law. . The automatic Kalashnikov, made in a factory here, is a quintessential national product: extraordinarily successful, widespread, a name closely connected to the identity of a state. It was designed by Kalashnikov, a former tank sergeant, in classified weapons trials after World War II, and was promptly embraced by Soviet soldiers for its simplicity and reliability under almost any condition. It is regarded as a weapon that rarely, if ever, fails. Russian arms officials say that no other nation has a valid license to make the AK-47 and its many derivatives and clones, and that to defeat insurgents and terrorists, Washington has been encouraging violations of intellectual property rights. . Russia is suffering losses in income, jobs and damage to the Kalashnikov name, the officials say, and they would like the United States to shop for the weapons directly from Russia. . "We would like to inform everybody in the world that many countries, including the United States, have unfortunately violated recognized norms," said Igor Sevastyanov, who leads a division of Rosoboronexport, Russia's state-controlled arms export company. . U.S. officials confirm that non-Russian Kalashnikov rifles have been provided with U.S. assistance to Afghanistan and Iraq. Sometimes the weapons have been transferred via purchases on international arms markets, they say, other times by donations from friendly states as a gesture of cooperation with the United States' war and reconstruction efforts. . The officials say they are aware of the Russian complaints. . "We have taken the position that there are important issues with respect to the production, intellectual property rights and conditions of export of these weapons, and it is important that we strengthen controls in all of these areas," a State Department official said. . Officials from Rosoboronexport and Izhmash, the Russian company holding patents on the rifle, say U.S.-coordinated transfers include Kalashnikov clones made in Romanian, Bulgarian and Hungarian plants. . Despite Russian complaints, the transfers continue, U.S. officials say, in part because the automatic Kalashnikov is inexpensive and requires less training to master than modern American rifles. Several officials noted that many young Iraqi and Afghan men already know how to use it. . Izhmash and Rosoboronexport agree with this position; their officials are even proud that the Pentagon prefers the Kalashnikov for its new allies. . But they say Washington's deals have come at the expense of Izhmash and Izhevsk, where mass production of the rifles began in 1949, and where orders and the work force have shrunk since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. . More than 12,000 people worked on the gun lines then; roughly 7,000 work there today, and at fewer shifts, said Andrei Vishnyakov, an Izhmash official. . The officials noted that the low price of Kalashnikov knockoffs can make it impossible to sell the genuine item, a phenomenon resembling the underselling of software and DVDs, albeit on a different scale. . For example, the Jordanian rifles sell for about $60 each - less than one-fourth of the price of a new Kalashnikov from the Izhmash plant, according to Rosoboronexport data. . "They are selling these rifles at dump prices," said Alexander Likhachev, a former Izhmash director who is now an official with the state arms agency. . The New York Times [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. 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