Protecting Copyright

UNBRIDLED breach of copyright is a common phenomenon in Nepal. Paying royalty to the creator for using his/her creation for some purpose is blithely ignored by users of that creation. Musicians and singers, for instance, have to witness to their daily frustration how electronic media in Nepal completely overlook the rights of the former to receive royalty for that popular song they put on the air every day, sometimes several times on a single day. Saying enough is enough, they got together to form a copyright protection society. But how do you fight the anything-goes system when legal parameters are not there to book the culprits? Those with the entertainment industry did valiantly pursue their cause and had the local administration, for example, come down on those making illegal video copies of their work on the basis of the existing inadequate Copyright Act 2022. It became plain that this Act was not going to get the crusaders very far if a culture of respect for copyrights were to be cultivated. Hence the clamour for a new copyright act.

Responding to the demand of primarily the entertainment industry and also the need to have the country’s intellectual property rights system in compliance with TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement in the run-up to Nepal entering World Trade Organisation (WTO), the government has drafted a bill. According to officials of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation, the Copyright Bill-2058, expected to be tabled at the current parliament session, has significant provisions to make the enforcement aspect more effective. That gives some hope that the Act, which will cover both industrial property rights (patents, trademarks, designs) and copyrights (art works), will actually make some dent on the widespread copyright infraction. The reason why the extant Act has not made much of a difference in this respect is its lack of enforcement teeth, besides having inadequate provisions to deal with the intellectual property rights in these modern times. Under the bill, the ideas to have the Copyright Section under the ministry function as the Registrar and to provide for a copyright collection society are both sound proposals. The first would help to establish copyright to a particular intellectual work while the latter will give those who are behind that labour their dues. Passage of the bill, however, will not suffice. Regulations that govern details on the implementation of the Act need to be brought out without delay. Nepal’s creators have suffered enough.

Against All Odds

TWO sight-impaired youths of Pokhara, according to a news item, have not only produced a programme, "Dhristi Chetan", but have even started broadcasting it every Tuesday. These two sight-impaired youths could be the very first ones to not only produce such a programme but broadcast it too. For their laudable initiative these two youths should and must be duly commended. The more so since they have, through their own efforts, eloquently proved that given the right amount of opportunity and encouragement from all, even sight-impaired persons can be useful to the society at large. Especially in a society like ours that, even in this 21st century, still tends to take a dim view concerning the abilities of its physically disabled members to become useful citizens, leave alone to stand on their own feet with dignity and honour. As such, one can just imagine the amount of efforts that these two gusty sight-impaired youths had to put in just to produce a programme aimed at generating awareness against the discrimination meted out against the disabled and sight-impaired persons of the society. Also, of the initial discouragement, heartache and ridicule that they by faced when they broached their plan to produce such a programme. Fortunately, despite all this, they forged ahead to not only come up with their own programme, but even managed to air it.

Till date, no one seems to know the exact statistics of physically disabled citizens in the country. Without such statistics, the concerned authorities, be they from the government or the non-government side, would not be able to come up with schemes to, among others, impart the physically impaired citizens with necessary knowledge, skills and expertise so that they too can contribute their share to the development of the nation. The only silver lining in this otherwise bleak scenario is that the just concluded census had given due consideration to these less fortunate members of the society by including details to ascertain their exact numbers as well as the forms of disability that they are suffering from. While we may have to wait for some time for the Central Bureau of Statistics to reveal the figures, it looks to reason on the part of the all to come up with disabled-specific schemes to tap and harness the disabled citizens’ latent talents and potentials.