Enforcing Copyright

NEPALESE creators in different fields finally saw the long-sought -after legislation that aim at protecting their creations, emerge out of the just-concluded session of parliament. When the bill-that was passed by the House of Representatives on April 1 and later okayed by the National Assembly with amendments two weeks later-gets the royal assent, Nepal’s new Copyright Act-2002 will come into effect. Big hopes are pinned on the new Act, as it replaces the old Copyright Act-2022 B.S. that was simply inadequate to ensure that Nepalese creators had their rights preserved. But before that begins to happen, there is quite a good deal of homework to be done. The task before the government now is to come out with regulations on the basis of the just-passed Act to formulate which a lot of deliberations have taken place both at the government and the civil society levels. Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Bal Bahadur KC, addressing the annual general meeting of the Copyright Protection Society of Nepal (CPSN) on Monday, assured that the regulations will be formulated very soon.

Then there is the question of implementation, something that intellectual property experts and authors of various art works emphasised with one voice at the Monday gathering. True, passage of the Bil is a positive development, coming as it does when Nepal is preparing to enter into World Trade Organisation and when the provisions of the TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Properties) agreement will become operative for Least Development Countries like Nepal from January 1,2006, The TRIPS-complaint bill also allows Nepal to joint the Berne Convention which would protect Nepali works in the countries that are signatories to the international Convention. But welcome development as it is, the Act and the ensuing regulations will really benefit Nepalese creators only if they are strictly implemented. In other words, the test of the new laws lies in how they are put into practice. At the more practical level, what it means is that Nepal has to develop human resources in enforcement and monitoring at agencies that will bear the responsibility of ensuring compliance with the new laws. Enforcing intellectual property rights being a new field for Nepalese law enforcement agencies, it is not unimaginable that lack of knowledge and skills in this regard could effectively confine the new Act to the gazette only. The government thus will have to work closely with promotes of copyrights, artistes and authors in suitably enhancing enforcement agencies’ understanding of the ins and outs involved in all this so that copyright becomes a real right for Nepalese creators.

Education For Children

THE Department of Education, is to launch a week-long campaign to pull more students into the classrooms. Towards this end, it has requested district education committees to form a seven to 15 member taskforce consisting of headmasters, village chairmen, representatives from various political parties and local organisations, guardians and students. Such taskforces, apart from looking into the admission status of children, would be also identifying ways and means to not only bring more children into the schools but also encourage the drop-outs to resume their studies. While it is to be hoped that the forthcoming campaign would be successful in encouraging more children as well as drop-outs to go to schools, that there seems to be something amiss in the nation’s primary-level education scenario hardly needs any elaboration. Especially since the concerned education authorities have waived fees for children enrolled in primary schools. This seems to have created some sort of misunderstanding among the parents of school-going children residing in and around areas where both the state-funded and privately run primary schools are located. While the general understanding among parents is that they need not pay fees for their children going to the state-funded primary schools, they do have to dole out fees in privately run primary schools. But then, since the quality of education imparted to students in public schools still leaves much room for improvement, the parents, given the means, would like to send their children to privately run schools. As for parents in the rural areas where most schools are not only state-funded but still few and far in-between, they have no option but to send them there. Provided, of course, they still have the means and the mind to send their children to schools. As all know, parents of school-going children in the rural areas, being mostly small farmers, still have to face difficulties to make ends meet. Since farming in Nepal is still labour-intensive, the children, instead of being sent to schools, could end up helping their parents in the farms. No wonder it is said that more than two million children are still devoid of opportunities to go to school. Hence, if more chidren are to be brought into the classrooms, the concerned authorities should not only address the above mentioned issues but also come up with more practical programmes.