New IRMA Anti-Piracy Standards Introduced

Less Paperwork For Replicators

2-Mar-01

The International Recording Media Association released Version 3.0 of its international Anti-Piracy Compliance Program Standards during the REPLItech North America Show in Los Angeles, California.The primary revisions to the standard include reducing the paperwork requirements for repeat orders and/or orders from qualified customers, the introduction of sample manuals to ease the training and audit processes, and a reduction in the number of external audits during the first 18 months.""All of the changes made to the standards are direct results of feedback from plants involved in the certification process during its first year of implementation,"" said IRMA Anti-Piracy Coalition Chairman Scott Bartlett, Vice President - Customer & Industry Relations, Sony Disc Manufacturing. ""The initial standards were written nearly two years ago and were based on expert knowledge of plant operations, but there were never any beta tests of how the standards could be implemented in real-life situations. Now that we have nearly a dozen plants certified, we saw a need to adjust some of the requirements - most importantly, to reduce the paperwork for plants, to help them learn how to train employees and conduct audits, and to reduce the number of times IRMA goes in to conduct audits during the plant's first year and a half in the program."" The new IRMA-developed ""Intellectual Property Rights"" (IPR) form can reduce paperwork requirements by allowing plants to easily outsource work to other plants without requiring them to complete an additional set of different verification forms. The new IRMA-developed ""Summary Agreement"" form can reduce paperwork by allowing customers to indemnify replicators by completing the form verifying the items for replication are properly licensed for replication by the property rights owner. For plants already enrolled in the IRMA Anti-Piracy Compliance Program, the association now has several sample manuals to help the plants become certified. The ""BSA Training Manual"" was developed by the Business Software Alliance and can help plants implement an anti-piracy training program for their employees. The ""IRMA Anti-Piracy Plant Procedures Manual"" contains sample statements and details that can be customized and adapted for use in plant operations. And, the ""IRMA Audit Manual"" can help plants enrolled in the program prepare for and conduct both internal and external audits. ""These manuals will be extremely helpful for plants, especially those not involved in or familiar with ISO-like audit procedures,"" said Theo Kohler, IRMA's Director of Anti-Piracy in Europe. ""Now, plant personnel can literally take our manuals and change a few words or procedures to make them applicable to their operations; there's no need for them to reinvent the wheel or try to build these documents from scratch."" The final significant change in the IRMA standards is a reduction in the number of times IRMA conducts audits during the plant's first year-and-a-half in the program. Under the revised standard, IRMA will conduct the initial audit of the plant and the first re-certification audit six months later. Then, the plant will conduct its own audit six months after being re-certified and submit quarterly reports attesting to their adherence to the standards. IRMA will then conduct annual audits of the plant's operations. ""Under our previous standards,"" said IRMA Director of Anti-Piracy Rusty Capers, ""IRMA conducted the initial audit, then re-certification audits every six months thereafter, resulting in four IRMA-conducted audits in the first 18 months. The new procedure will not only reduce IRMA's expenses related to the audits, but make the audit procedures less onerous for the plants."" For more information about IRMA and the new Standard V3.0, visit www.recordingmedia.org.

Read More:
http://www.recordingmedia.org