|
Copyright laws made tougher
Accra, Dec. 28, GNA – Mr Alfred Kumi-Atiemo, Assistant
Director of the Copyright Office, said on Thursday the
minimum fine for the violation of anti-piracy and other
copyright and Intellectual Property (IP)laws now stood at
500 penalty units, which was equivalent to 60 million cedis.
He said formerly the fine which was quoted in Ghanaian
pounds in the law books was so little that perpetrators of
violations got away almost free.
"But now, under the new law, which is in conformity with
international standards, the law now quotes fines in penalty
units and one penalty unit is the equivalent of 120,000
cedis," he said.
Mr Kumi-Atiemo made this known to journalists at a day's
National Seminar for Intellectual Property (IP) Stakeholders
and Law Enforcement Agencies.
The seminar was jointly organized by the International Trade
Centre (ITC), UNCTAD and the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
in collaboration with the Copyright Office of Ghana and the
Registrar General’s Department, under the auspices of the
Ministry of Trade, Industry, Private Sector Development and
President’s Special Initiative (PSI).
It was to create awareness for stakeholders, including
owners of IP, such as literary works, copyrights and
industrial property, and law enforcement agencies like the
Police; Customs, Excise and Preventive Service(CTPS);
Immigration Service and the Judiciary on how to maximize the
benefits from Ghana's revamped IP Rights (IPR) laws.
Under the WTO TRIPS Agreement, all WTO member countries were
to adjust their local IPR laws to cover seven areas -
copyright and related rights; trademarks; geographical
indications; industrial designs (architectural designs and
more); Patents; layout designs (topographies) of integrated
circuits and undisclosed information.
Mr Kumi-Atiemo noted that through the assistance of the
Swiss Government, Ghana undertook an 11-year amendment
process to align IPR laws to the WTO TRIPS Agreement and
other specific international IP agreements.
He said the country, like all other developing countries was
initially allotted five years, within which to complete its
alignment process, but it took Ghana 11 years to complete.
"Now the scope of the Law has been widened to protect even
the rights of owners of computer hardware and software
programmes, which used to be alien to our law books -
computer hardware is captured under artistic works and the
software is under literary works in the law."
Mr Kumi-Atiemo said as part of measures to make the
application of the Law effective, copyright database was
also in the process of being computerized.
"We have already awarded the contract to a consultant to do
a feasibility study prior to the computerization for the
actual computerization to take off," he said.
Mr Kumi-Atiemo noted that one more amendment in the Law was
the number of years it took for an IP to become public
property from the day it was published, which he said had
also been changed from 50 years to 70 years.
This, he said, was to encourage creativity and give the hope
to IP rights owners that the law would protect their rights
long enough for them to enjoy the fruits of their creativity
and even pass it on to generations after them.
Mr Selbi Ashong-Katai, President of the Ghana Writers
Association (GWA), told the GNA that the Association was
impressed with the move to align local IPR laws with
international initiatives and protocols to protect literary
and artistic works of Ghanaians both here and abroad.
He noted that the law as it stood over the years coupled
with the ill-resourced copyright office in the country, made
it easy for literary works and other IP to be pirated
rampantly.
Mr Ashong-Katai observed that, even though, most pirated
books in Ghana tended to be those of foreign writers, most
Ghanaians books were pirated in the schools by some
recalcitrant teachers and students, who usually wanted to
avoid buying textbooks.
He was hopeful that with the revamped law and the vigorous
awareness creation among law enforcement agencies, that the
trend would be halted.
Mr Kwadwo Affram Asiedu, Deputy Minister of Trade Industry
and PSI, noted that the revamped international IPR Law also
provided flexibility for developing countries like Ghana,
which did not have the capacity to produce enough
pharmaceuticals to meet the health needs of their people, to
procure such drugs at affordable prices from overseas.
He said the Ministry of Health; Food and Drugs Board and the
Registrar-General's Department were currently working
together to ensure that Ghana took advantage of that
flexibility.
The seminar was sponsored by the Joint Integrated Technical
Assistance Programme (JITAP) and was attended by about 60
participants from the law enforcement agencies, various
copyright owners associations, the copyright office and the
Registrar-General's Department.
GNA
|
