Department of Law and Human Rights

Assignment

Course Title: Intellectual Property Law

Course Code: Law-305

Assignment Topic: An Overview of the Copyright Protection Law in Bangladesh

Submitted to:

Mr. Md. Sazzad Hossain

Lecturer
Department of Law and Human Rights

Submitted by:

Md. Sharear Sarker-18211005

Joita Sarkar-18211007

Mithila Farjana -18211031

 An Overview of the Copyright Protection
Law in Bangladesh

Abstract:
Copyright is one of the most important things in the field of intellectual property because its
gives exclusive monopoly rights in the arena of literature, dramatics, musical, artistic,
cinematograph and sound recording. Importance of copyright increasing day by day but it’s
going to be difficult protect the copyright because there are lack of enforcing mechanism &
agency’s although we have Copyright Act,2000. For the protection of copy right government
should come forward and establish strong enforcement agency to stop the piracy ,There are also
need some amendments for the enforcement. In this research we try to highlight the copy
position in Bangladesh, Common barriers and solutions of those barriers related to the copy right
position in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Copyright, intellectual property, Protect, Enforcement agency, Barriers and

solutions.

Introduction : Legislator of the state create a legal concept of copyright by which an

exclusive right is given to the creator or original owner for limited time1 . By the name of this
Act every one think that this about “the right to copy”, but also gives the copyright holder the
right to be credited for the work and to determine who may modify the work to other forms, who
may perform the work, who may financially benefited from it, and other related exclusive
monopoly rights. So we can said that the main object of the copyright law is to inspire authors,
artistic, composers and designers to create original works by rewarding them with the exclusive
monopoly right for a specified period of time to exploit monetary gain and reputation for
perpetually.

 Overview on Copyright Law in Bangladesh

Copyright law had some certain provisions which protects the intellectual rights of the author
both online and offline. It also provides a number of provisions for uses of the protected worked
without seeking permission from authors but there had a condition that purpose of such uses
must fair dealing, such as private study, private use.

If a person violate one of the provisions of Copyright Act ,The owner of the copyright holder can
sue for infringement of his copyright and mandatorily can obtain remedies , for example
damages and an injunction under Copyright Act,2000.

1
Sections 24-38 of Copyright Act,2000
 If any paper registered under the Copyright Act, 2000 it also protected internationally. The
Berne Convention of WIPO protected this type of literary and artistic work and Bangladesh is a
member country of this.

 There are lots of examples of established copy right law in Bangladesh. Many people

are benefited by this law and they can protect their intellectual property. Some

examples are given below-

DU finds two teachers guilty of plagiarism2

 Allegations against the two teachers, in 2017 Chicago Journal's editor claimed that Samia
Rahman, an associate professor of mass communication and journalism, and Syed Mahfujul
Haque Marjan, a lecturer of criminology, copied from the journal's articles without proper
citations. He had claimed that the co-authored article had copied without proper citations from
French philosopher Michel Foucault's article titled "The Subject and Power", according to a
letter, which was read out at September 28, 2017's meeting. The 19-page article by Foucault was
published in University of Chicago Press's journal Critical Inquiry in 1982.The article with
plagiarism is "A New Dimension of Colonialism and Pop Culture: A Case Study of the Cultural
Imperialism", published in Social Science Review, the journal of DU social science faculty, in
December, 2016.
 After that if we look at another fact which is go to the court for the establishment of
copyright.

“Sheva Prakashani has sent a legal notice to the Copyright Office seeking
quashing of the verdict in the case of possession of more than three hundred
books of 'Masud Rana' and 'Kuasha' series” 3. Here question of law about establishing
copyright is come out.

 When we look the implementation of Copy Right law internationally we see

many cases one of them are given below-

2
https://www.thedailystar.net/city/news/du-finds-two-teachers-guilty-plagiarism-tribunal-formed-
1959461#:~:text=Probe%20body%20submits%20report%20after%20three%20years&text=Dhaka%20University
%20(DU)%20authorities%20have,tribunal%20to%20determine%20their%20punishment.
3
https://www.banglanews24.com/art-literature/news/bd/803139.details?fbclid=IwAR0o9-
2oIya4WkifdJ5uXgbsOxRzH59evck-VnjX5bVeS-VWOXVSdB8L5TE
 Carious Vs. Prince4
Fact- Richard Prince is a well known appropriation artist — one who transforms the work of
others to create new meaning in his own work. For an exhibition in the Gagosian Gallery, Prince
appropriated 41 images from a photography book by French photographer Patrick Cariou,
claiming fair use that he created new meaning out of the photographs. Cariou argued that it
wasn’t fair use, but copyright infringement.

Held- A judge ruled in favor for Cariou in 2011, claiming the changes made to Cariou’s
photographs weren’t significant enough to constitute a change in meaning — fair use. However,
the case is currently in appeal and the final decision has not yet been reached.

 If we deeply observed the implementation of this copy right law in Bangladesh there had
some problems on this that general public are not known about the actual meaning of
copyright and very few people are known something about copyright but there idea is not
clear on copy right. Most of the people cannot differentiate between trademarks,
copyright and patent.

The provisions of Copyright in Bangladesh are not enough to convict a person or groups for
infringement .The loping on the provisions are given below-

1. Policing and Less Number of Suo-moto Raids- For the enforcement of any law
executive members or law enforcement agency play a very important role but a majority
of law enforcement agency persons are not familiar with the provisions of the copyright
Act .There had also another problem which is corruption that’s why when the raid occur,
the information about the raid is leaked by some of the police officers.

2. Lack of judicial system- There are around 2220 Courts across the county which deals
about the civil matter topics but the court procedures are also very slow and there had so
many difficulties.

3. Lack of training to the police - For the improvement of every countries law
enforcement system its also necessary that police education and public awareness in order
to strengthen control on Piracy. Because by observing various facts of the copyright case
we see that the police officials have lack of necessary amount of training in the filed of
intellectual property.

4
https://99designs.com/blog/tips/5-famous-copyright-infringement-cases/
4. Lack of legal frameworks- Required copy right law still now not legislated in
Bangladesh. For the lacking of the copy right Act the status of the copyright in
Bangladesh going to the backdoor after the end of the justice. Due to this lacking of the
copyright Act the author and owner are not feel safe to enhance there intellectual created
work.

5. Limited Protection- Copyright Act 2000 offers limited protection for the owner or
creator. For example, copyright protects a particular expression of an idea (as in images,
words or sounds) but it does not protect the idea or concept itself. Thus, if someone draws
a picture of a new type of shower head, others will be prohibited from copying the
drawing, but they can still use the basic idea to build an actual shower head

6. Non Establishment of Copyright society - There is a provision of the establishment of

copyright society in Bangladesh, but unfortunately till now it was not established.

 After findings the problems we find out the possible solution of this problems –

1. Establish an anti-piracy force and take actions (including ex officio) against book
piracy at photocopy shops and those who engage in offset printing and against
rampant CD, DVD, CD-R, DVD-R and CD-ROM piracy.

2. Copyright law should provide basis for the protection of software because absence of
copyright protection in software is accountable for poor flow of foreign client and
extremely low rate of export of software which is not ensured in Copyright Act 0f
2000.

3. Legal system should be equipped with proper exampled and instrument to deal with
sophisticated litigation over the ownership of copyright in software and other computer
basis. Besides, technically qualified judicial persons like judge should be provided to
settle disputes relating to this area.

4. Mechanism must be developed to ensure speedy and cheap resolution of disputes and
litigation by infringement where the existing proceedings are not well equipped.

5. Step should be introduced to establish a private central copyright society, which should
act as ombudsman against infringement of software copyright and at the same time
safeguard proper marketing of software and maximum license fees.

6. In the universities syllabus intellectual property right should be introduced as a part of

undergraduate education course to make the future Information Technology experts who
will be aware of the copyright law.
 7. Specialized Intellectual Property courts and Intellectual Property judges shall be
appointed. The copyright cases are brought to the same courts as the other civil or
criminal cases which are large in number. These results in ignorance or delay in the
adjudication of copyright cases.

8. The people of the country need to get aware of the importance of copyright laws and their
effects, not only on the creative and innovative thinking of the authors but also on the
national economy of the country. The government should take necessary measures to
promote copyright enforcement by telling people about the harms of copyright violation.

Conclusion :- Actual author are not getting any benefit of the intellectual work because of
the lickings of this copyright law which is bad not only the authority but also for the whole
country. So this person should be punished who copies and actual authors should be much more
conscious as tiger.