Protection under Copyright Law

Copyright means author's rights. An author is the creator or owner of a work in respect of literary, artistic, dramatic and musical works, cinematographic films, sound recordings, computer programmes, broadcasting programmes, musical performances and phonogram recording etc. Copyright is divided into two categories: economic rights and moral rights. Economic rights are the rights of reproduction, adaptation, translation, broadcasting, public performance, public display, public recitation, publication and distribution. Moral rights relate to modification, distortion and mutilation that might be prejudicial to author's creativity and/or reputation. These rights are granted to authors by the state, empowering them to exercise them in accordance with the copyright law.  Protection of copyrights is deemed to be automatic.
This means when a person creates a work, he/she becomes the owner of copyright and he/she is free to decide on its use. Since by law the work is protected by copyright from the moment it comes into being, there is no formality to be complied with, such as deposit of any work etc., as a condition of protection, He/she can also take legal action through a court of law against the violation of a right. The very notion of copyright law is that nobody is allowed to use or commercially sell copies of a protected work without authorisation from the author/creator of the work.
Copyright law in Bangladesh provides a number of provisions for use of protected works without seeking permission from authors for the purpose of fair dealings, such as private study, private use, research, criticisms, review, reporting current events in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, in cinematograph films by broadcast or by photograph. The law also provides some other provisions to use a protected work without authorisation from an author in cases of official gazettes, reports of various commissions, committees, boards or councils appointed by government or other similar bodies, if those are not expressly prohibited to be published. Similarly, a number of provisions also exist under which users are given the liberty to use the protected works in cases of sound recordings, cinematographic film, computer programmes under certain exceptional cases.
Copyright law provides a number of provisions for limitations as well. Limitation refers to terms of copyright. Copyright is not a perpetual property unlike other movable or immovable properties. The ownership of copyright for a work is limited to a fixed period of time, after expiry of which copyright does not exist and it becomes a work of public domain and then any person or individual can use it without observing any legal obligations. The time span in this respect may differ from country to country. It may be 70 or 60 or 50 years but it should be minimum 50 years in major works, in accordance with international copyright law i.e., the Berne Convention of WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) for the protection of literary and artistic works of which Bangladesh is a member.
In Bangladesh, copyright protection periods are as follows: (a) literary, artistic, musical, dramatic works-- 60 years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the author dies (life + 60 years); (b) photographs-- 60 years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the photograph is published; (c) cinematographic films-- 60 years following the year in which the film is released, (d) government works-- 60 years from publication; (e) publications by local authority-- 60 years from first publication; (f) sound recordings-- 60 years from publication; (g) works of international organisations-- 60 years from 1st publication; (h) broadcasting-- 25 years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the broadcasting is made; (i) performance-- 50 years from the beginning of the year following the year in which the performance is made; (j) published edition (typographical arrangement)-- 25 years from the beginning of the calendar year following the year in which the edition is first published; (k) joint authorship of a work-- 60 years from the death of last surviving author.
Infringements/piracy of copyrights is now a serious problem all over the world. In recent years, copyright piracy in the form of counterfeiting and plagiarism have increased manifold in many countries due to the advent of various devices for easy reproduction resulting in unauthorised transfer and use of protected works and also in depriving authors/ creators of their legitimate remunerations/royalties. In Bangladesh too, such problems are now assuming increasingly serious proportions. Currently, Bangladesh has a good copyright law, enacted in 2000, under which provisions are available to form copyright societies for each class of works mentioned in the copyright law, As per the Law, authors or the creators of works, such as writers artists, film makers, broadcasters, musical composers, software producers or programmers, musical performers, including phonogram producers are entitled to administer their own copyrights as members of the societies. Forming and strengthening of these societies with active participation of the copyright owners could be a viable means to curb the menace as well as ensure royalties/ remunerations.

The writer is senior lecturer, Department of Law, World University of Bangladesh.
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