Mexico. Traditionally, the role of the State as guarantor of the security of Mexicans has focused on the physical space of national sovereignty. However, today all of us in information and communications technologies (ICTs) also require a legal framework that protects us personally and patrimonially in that digital space. This is indicated by the most recent report of the Institute of Telecommunications Law, IDET.
A case that occupies the Judicial Branch is that referred to the American company Roku, developer of a platform for the distribution of audiovisual content over the Internet, which today is prevented from marketing its products in the country, for empowering content pirates to illegally market content protected by copyright. Roku, instead of using its technical and economic resources to close this door, has opted to litigate before the media and argue that the decisions of the Judiciary are unconstitutional and illegal.
In conversations between Roku executives and national journalists in recent weeks, they themselves have accepted that they have not fully complied with the decisions of the Mexican courts and remain open backdoors that allow digital hackers to continue operating on their platform. With this, they create a window of illegality and unfair competition with respect to other streaming services in the market that do operate within the framework of legality, paying taxes and their respective portion to the owners of intellectual property rights.
Roku executives have also claimed that just over 90% of its content is legal, leaving an illegal content gap that accounts for nearly a tenth of the total traffic of content passing through its devices in Mexico. This clearly results in substantial losses for creators whose works are illegally marketed. According to its own report to the US stock exchange, the company spent more than 107 million dollars on research and development in 2017, so it should have spent a fraction in finding the formula to close the doors to illegal content, as similar devices do.
In the field of privacy and the protection of personal data, risks arise, in a similar way. With this recognition of the risk windows, Roku confirms that it is aware of not complying with the law fully, by selling devices vulnerable to hacker access, thus exposing the consumer and the stores that sell them to patrimonial and reputational damages.
And, even so, that company seeks to present itself as a victim of circumstances beyond its control, and protects itself in declaring that it cannot fully comply with the judicial decisions that for months have prevented the sale of Roku brand tuners in national territory. However, it is up to the Mexican State to guarantee compliance with the legal framework of intellectual property rights, an issue that is not addressed with attempts to convince public opinion.
It is reasonable to anticipate that similar conflicts will continue to arise between the private interest of companies and the public represented by state bodies, derived from new technological alternatives. Undoubtedly, they should be priority issues in public policies that promote the growth of the digital economy.
IDET recognizes the Internet as a fundamental means of communication and platform for economic activity. This makes it necessary to firmly defend cyberspace as a fundamental foundation to allow the safe and harmonious growth of Mexican digital life, all in a context of compliance with the legal framework related to intellectual property.
