ACTIVITIES – BIPF

Media roles and IP

Bangladesh Copyright & IP Forum organised a workshop titled ‘Intellectual Property Issues and Media: Dos and Don’ts’ on December 9 at the Shilpakala Academy.

Journalists and officials from Copyright Office Bangladesh, Department of Patents, Designs and Trademarks (DPDT), University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) and other organizations attended the workshop.

M Hamid, director general of Bangladesh Television (BTV) says, sometimes media practitioners use contents belonging to people without providing due credit to the owners. While using others’ content media personnel have to pay credit to the original owners. But to enforce copyright, people whose rights are violated must speak themselves, he observed.

Md Manzurur Rahman, secretary of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, also ex-registrar of copyright office discusses the basics and importance of copyright. He emphasises on media’s role in creating awareness among the people through talking ins and outs of the rights.

ABM HamidulMishbah, chief executive of BIPF says whose rights are violated can go to the court. People do not know about the copyright law and thus it is not applied, he adds. Media should come forward to raise awareness about it.

Kazi Zahin Hasan, president of BIPF, Sahela Akter, deputy registrar of Copyright Office also spoke at the workshop.

Source: Xtra, New Age, December 14, 2012

SME Foundation’s fund for protection of IP rights assured

The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Foundation would allocate funds for the protection of intellectual property (IP) rights to encourage the young entrepreneurs into technological innovations, Industries Minister Dilip Barua said yesterday.

“The plan is aimed at turning Bangladesh into a middle-income country by introducing information technology in the industry sector,” Barua said.

He said this while speaking at a seminar on ‘Protecting Intellectual Property in Digital World’, at the Bangabandhu International Conference Centre in Dhaka Saturday. The seminar was organised on the sideline of a three-day ‘Digital World 2012’ at the centre.

Many technological analysts, specialists and professionals joined the seminar where founder of Bangladesh Copyright and IP Forum Barrister A B M Hamidul Mishbah and Barrister KM Tanjib-ul-Alam, Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh, presented two key-note papers.

Speakers and discussants underscored the need for building mass awareness to put an end to the piracy of IP and establishing separate IP court to ensure justice in this regard. They also identified lack of financing as the key barrier to the country’s technological innovation and said IP infrastructures must be strengthened alongside financing to IT, which will eventually help create many jobs.

IP could be an important tool to make a ‘Digital Bangladesh’- a joint effort has become indispensable to protect IP rights, according to the speakers. The minister urged young people to devote themselves to protect intellectual property.

Dilip Barua said the people involved in research activities at different levels should register their innovations quickly so that no one can usurp or illegally use their IP.

Noted IT expert Mustafa Jabbar moderated the seminar.

Source: Daily Star, Daily Sun and Financial Express

Protecting craftsmanship

To encourage a dialogue among students about the concept, its implementation and protection of Intellectual Property laws, the Bangladesh Copyright and Industrial Property Forum (BIPF) and Media Studies and Journalism department of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) jointly organised a seminar titled ‘Intellectual property issues in branding’ at the university auditorium on March 8, 2012.

Students as well as media professionals pointed out that a major barrier for protecting intellectual property and copyright currently exists because of poor economic status of the mainstream population. Given the disparity of prices between the original and pirated copies, the latter always wins the economic viability. Emphasising on moral, ethical and legal grounds, speakers at the event urged students and participants to show respect to intellectual property as both users and producers of ideas.

‘Bangladesh has branded itself to the world as a major exporter of garments,’ says Sharifa Khan, director of WTO cell under the commerce ministry. ‘We can have greater exposure to the world community by improving the industries. What we now need is mobilising intellectual property laws to aware the youths about their benefits.’

Professor Imran Rahman, the Vice-Chancellor of ULAB, mentioned the importance of branding in intellectual property bearing example of ‘Bata’, which became popular among people through its brand. Soon afterwards, similar products entered the market copying the symbol of the brand or changing the name slightly.

The speakers encouraged all to use open source software as alternatives to using copyright contents for greater social interest. ‘We should develop a practice of using open source software products to refrain from using pirated copies,’ said Kazi Zahin Hasan, President of BIPF.

ABM Hamidul Mishbah, the Chief Executive of BIPF presented the keynote paper in the seminar where Peter Anthony Dindial, CEO of GPIT Ltd said, ‘Implementation of intellectual property laws can contribute significantly in social and economic development.’

Professor Syed Ferhat Anwar, Chief Advisor of Bangladesh Brand Forum, Kazi Zahin Hasan, president of BIPF also spoke in the seminar which was moderated by Manzurur Rahman, Registrar of Copyright Office.

This article was written by Mahfuzul Haque, published in the daily New Age.

Promoting rights of creativity

With an aim to protect intellectual property and disseminate the message across stakeholders about their rights on their creative output, the Bangladesh Copyright and IP (Industrial Property) Forum launched INTELLECT – a quarterly magazine focusing on intellectual property in different areas.

The magazine was officially launched at the Lakeshore Hotel in Dhaka on May 12, in presence of artists, media personalities and industry insiders. The Chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission, Zia Ahmed graced the event as chief guest, accompanied by Manzurur Rahman, Registrar of Copyright Office, Wazed Ali Khan Panni, a former Ambassador and Kazi Zahedul Hasan, Chairman of Kazi Farms.

The magazine, a brainchild of Kazi Zahin Hasan, Chairman of BIPF, aims to develop a shared platform for all intellectual property and its concerns. ‘We decided to publish INTELLECT quarterly because we wanted to showcase the different kinds of intellectual properties which are created in Bangladesh,’ says Zahin Hasan as it makes an effort to ‘establish a space where the business of creating and selling different kinds of intellectual properties could be discussed.’

The 64-page magazine contains stories about Bangladeshi art scenario, future of animation, opportunities of open source, music copyright, free media and citizen journalism and Bangladeshi writings in English. Besides offering snippets of news around the world about copyright and intellectual property, the quarterly takes a look at the geographical indication law and collective management organisation aimed at facilitating rights of content ownership and loyalty fees.

‘This (quarterly) is part of our communication campaign,’ says Tamanna Faiz, Executive Editor of INTELLECT, to reach out to target stakeholders with a publication that ‘promotes and seeks to protect creativity’.

With the emancipation of different technologies and their territorial expansion, copyright is often slipped off, say experts. As intellectual property and copyright protection become demand of the time, ‘the BTRC is watchful about it,’ says Zia Ahmed.

‘IP is still at its nascent stage,’ says ABM Hamidul Mishbah, CEO of BIPF. A magazine like INTELLECT will make organisations like BIPF’s awareness building activity lot more easy, he says.

The launching of the magazine was marked as a timely event as intellectual property and copyright surfaces intense debates among different economies and their stakes to protect right of ownership. The evening event was a warm gathering of lawyers, academicians, artists and media professionals.

This op-ed is written by Saad Hammadi, published in the daily New Age.

Updated copyright law soon

The government is set to formulate an updated copyright law amending the existing laws in the country, said Manzurur Rahman, Registrar at Copyright Office.

“As the existing copyright laws have some weaknesses and ambiguities, we will amend the laws to bring them up to international standards, and ensure interests of stake -holders by protecting rights of their intellectual properties,” he said.

Manzurur briefed about the law’s new draft at a workshop jointly organized by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Copyright Office at Shilpakala Academy in the capital on 11 July, 2012. Opinions from stakeholders were gathered on the proposed amended law named Copyright (amended) Act, 2012. The country’s existing law on copyright is Copyright Act 2000 (amended in 2005).

Noted cultural personality and lawmaker Asaduzzaman Nur, Bangladesh Computer Samiti President Mustafa Zabbar, musicians Hamim Ahmed, Maqsudul Haque, Sujit Mostafa singer Momtaz Begum MP, and poet Nurul Huda, among others, spoke at the workshop.

Asaduzzaman Nur said he would place a final draft of the law to the parliamentary standing committee on the ministry of cultural affairs by incorporating recommendations of the stake-holders.

Mustafa Zabbar urged the government to remove some problems and inconsistencies in the law before formulating the amended law.