Copyrights

Pakistan’s copy write act is know as the “Intellectual Property Act”, which was established in 1962 which was initially protecting the print media only. It was then amended in 1964 which covered the electronic media as well meaning that all the audios and videos are copy write protected. This law was again amended to meet the international standards in 2000. This law protects all the international products that are copy write protected from international copy write agencies and are marketed in Pakistan. But unfortunately, there is a loop hole in it which is as follows:

If a product is not copy write protected by the international copy write agency and is copy write protected locally by some country outside Pakistan, then Pakistan’s copy write act is unable to protect that particular product. Meaning that the product can be marketed, copied or sold in Pakistani markets without the fear of getting sued or penalized. So in this case, if the owner wants to protect his product in Pakistan, then he must pay the license fee to the copy write agency of Pakistan.

Another loop hole is that if the piracy is done and no profits are earned out of that piracy, then the copy write law is useless means that the owner can not sue the person involved in the piracy of that product. For example, in Pakistan, most of the cable operators are downloading movies, songs, plays and all this sort of stuff for their clients and users for free in order to promote themselves but they are not selling those videos and just putting on their server for their clients. So in this case, copy write law is useless.

Regards,
Syed Muhammad Danish