RUSSIA:When world leaders gathered for the G8 Summit in St Petersburg last summer, the city's many shops selling pirate CDs and DVDs suddenly closed, writes Conor Sweeney.
Citing "technical problems", the city went mysteriously dry of new films for a while, although business returned to normal quickly enough.
As Russia hopes to complete the final hurdles to joining the World Trade Organisation this year, one of the main problems, at least from the perspective of copyright holders, is the lack of copyright control. The latest computer software, pharmaceutical products or simply a new album - they are all for sale at a fraction of the price in western Europe.
Across the country, in cities big and small, there are little stalls and kiosks selling the latest Hollywood blockbuster for about €3.
In fact, you could buy a pirated copy of Borat in a Moscow underpass, although the film was banned from distribution in the country.
So whether it's the latest James Bond action movie, Casino Royale, or a Hollywood classic such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, they're all readily available.
When it comes to quality, there are no guarantees. Most films are dubbed into Russian. Sometimes the DVDs have been filmed with a camera in the back of a cinema, so the quality is awful. Others are highly professional, with a choice of languages, subtitles and even sound settings.
It is not just the Russians in Moscow who watch these films. In one large embassy of a non-European country, the staff can browse through a vast library of bootleg films. Demand from foreigners is so strong that a handful of specific stalls in one of the city's largest outdoor markets, Ishmailova, cater especially for the expats.
"I was looking for the second series of Lost", an American woman said on the day this reporter visited - for investigative purposes only. "Sorry, sold out," came the reply.
US trade negotiator Susan Schwab specifically called for the Russian authorities to close down a site, allofmp3.com, selling MP3 music files.
It had become one of the most accessed sites on the web, selling music at a much lower cost per song than other services such as Itunes.
Allofmp3 hit back, insisting it was legal in Russia and was making copyright payments within the country.
These days you don't see too many CDs for sale in underground kiosks. It's simply not worth their while stocking much, said one vendor. Instead, you can buy a double CD crammed with all the Beatles songs in MP3 format for about €4.
Perhaps the more sophisticated and possibly the most dangerous area of pirate sales comes from pharmaceuticals.
People cannot distinguish the good from the bad so expert is the presentation, leading to some allegations that up to a third of medicine in Russia has a dubious history.
The pharmaceutical industry suspects that the reason the copies are of such a high quality is because many come from legitimate factories which run off additional batches with their regular produce.
This has caused some deaths, as has the manufacture of illegal vodka, but nothing like the numbers that might be expected.
Large software firms such as Microsoft have also lost out because of piracy.
Some conspiracy theorists believe many firms are happy to turn a blind eye to the use of bootleg software, since it creates a long-term market that can gradually be converted to the legitimate product.
There's even a specific area of one Moscow market, at Gorbushka, where the dealers specialise in bootleg software.
One friend purchased an entire suite of software copied from Adobe for 1,000 roubles, about €35.
Back home, however, he found that the code he was given to unlock the software and install it on his computer didn't work. He returned the next day and had his problem solved. Now he jokes that it was the best IT service he ever received.
All this may change soon, however, if Russian authorities crack down in order to meet their WTO commitments, although this would be very unpopular with a public that has become used to paying very little for movies and software.
Ahead of presidential elections due next March, it is would perhaps not be the most politically clever move, although as is usual in Russia, it will be the foreigners who will get the blame.