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.

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