ACTIVITIES

Effective enforcement of existing intellectual property rights in the country will facilitate the creative and innovative community. To ensure the inducing environment, both government and non-government entities should come forward and work together.

A day long training workshop titled “Copyright Protection & Enforcement in Bangladesh” was conducted in this regard on 29 December, 2013 in capital’s Lakeshore Hotel, Gulshan. Bangladesh Copyright & IP Forum along with Copyright Office, Bangladesh jointly organized the workshop.

Secretary to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs Dr. Ranjit Kumar Biswas ndc was the Chief Guest at the workshop. Among others, Registrar of Copyright Office Bangladesh Manzur Morshed Chowdhury, Chief Executive of BIPF Barrister A B M Hamidul Mishbah, Deputy Managing Director of Probashi Kollyan Bank & Copyright Expert Md. Manzurur Rahman, Country Manager of Microsoft Bangladesh Pubude Basanayake and Consultant to Business Software Alliance (BSA) Iftekhar Taher Tanvir were present.

Magistrates, District and Session Judges, Public Prosecutors, officials from Copyright Office, Bangladesh, Microsoft Bangladesh, BSA and BIPF attended the workshop.

To prevent the unauthorized use, reproduction and distribution of pirated software and computer programs, Copyright Office, Bangladesh has conducted an awareness drive, in association with Bangladesh Copyright & IP Forum (BIPF). The drive was conducted at the capital’s BCS Computer City, Agargaon and Multiplan Centre, Elephant Road on December 30, 2013 by officials of Copyright Office and BIPF.

While addressing the journalists, Registrar Manzur Morshed Chowdhury said, “We are conducting this awareness drive as part of the regular activities of Copyright Office. We have spoken to several IT professionals and businessmen and have called upon them to stop commercializing pirated software and computer programs.”

“Accurate enforcement of Copyright Law will stop the ongoing illegal vending of pirated software. This will ensure the innovators and creators of their due credits and also inspire software developers to be more innovative in their field”, added Barrister Mishbah.

Copyright Office, Bangladesh circulated a leaflet on software piracy awareness during their drive at the premises.

The two-day long workshop was attended by eminent members of literary and creative field.

To ensure effective enforcement of the existing intellectual property rights act and encourage innovation and creativity, a training workshop was held on February 12, 2014 in Dhaka city.

Cultural Affairs Secretary Ranjit Kumar Biswas ndc, chief guest at the workshop, said, “Law enforcement agencies should be made more aware of the IPR situation in Bangladesh. It will generate awareness among the people. Public and private entities together should play their due role.”

Discussants expressed that, people involved in the vicious cycle of piracy are unaware of the consequences of copyright violation. Active involvement of the law enforcement agencies would reduce the piracy rate in the country and ensure proper evaluation of the citizens’ creative minds, they added.

The workshop was organized for the Bangladesh Police by Bangladesh Copyright and IP Forum (BIPF) and the Copyright Office. Representatives from the Bangladesh Police, officials from Copyright Office, representatives from government agencies, officials from BIPF and Business Software Alliance (BSA) participated in the training workshop.

Innovation and creativity goes hand in hand with today’s youth, hence, the knowledge and extent of intellectual property rights is indispensable for them. In this regard, to celebrate the World Intellectual Property Day 2014, BIPF launched the IP Youth Camp at the Mujaffor Ahmed Auditorium in Dhaka University on April 25, 2014.

While addressing the audience, Kazi Zahin Hasan, Chairman of BIPF urged the youth to refrain from piracy and embrace open source software. The daylong camp consisted sessions of lectures, visual presentations and Q&A. Manjurur Rahman, eminent copyright expert of Bangladesh provided an extensive discussion on copyright and related rights. Barrister A B M Hamidul Mishbah, founder of BIPF took trough the audience on the various elements of intellectual property and youth engagement.

Mr. Ranjit Kumar Biswas ndc, secretary, ministry of cultural affairs was present at the workshop as the Chief Guest and gave away certificates to the participants upon completion of the youth camp.

Members of Volunteer for IP (VIP), a youth initiative of BIPF participated at the youth camp. Copyright Office, DPDT, Microsoft and EMK centre were the associating partners at the camp.

To address the ambiguous concerns regarding the recently approved National Broadcast Policy 2014, a round table discussion was held at Lake Shore Hotel on August 12, 2014. The discussion was attended by members of the policy formulating committee, journalists, professors, lawyers and other professionals.

Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu graced the event as the Chief Guest. He said the policy will serve as a guideline to the future broadcast commission and the minor confusions detected in the policy are subject to further improvement before enacting the law in this connection. He also added that stakeholders will be engaged for consultation while the government prepares the law.

The event was moderated by Robaet Ferdous, associate professor at the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism at University of Dhaka. The event was jointly organized by Bangladesh Copyright and IP Forum (BIPF), The Dhaka Tribune and Bangla Tribune, in association with Kazi Farms Limited.