Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Baku hosted a seminar on copyright in internet attended by a large number of representatives from different state bodies.

Addressing the seminar called "The copyright in the Internet: Opportunities and Challenges", Head of the Section for Caucasian, Central Asian and East European States at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Saule Tlevlesova said, Azerbaijan has achieved a great development in all areas. He also stressed the importance of this event which discusses topics of the most relevant in the world.

The seminar is co-organized by the Copyright Agency of Azerbaijan and WIPO.

The issue of intellectual property is a worldwide problem. Therefore, all states should adopt a national strategy to protect the intellectual property. "The relevant legislation for the intellectual property is of high importance in Azerbaijan," Tlevlesova highlighted.

Azerbaijan has managed to creat a legislation, administrative and judicial system to protect intangible heritage in accordance with international standards. The system gives the government a large number of opportunities to combat piracy.

Chairman of the Agency, Kamran Imanov also talked about copyright in the digital environment, protection of the intellectual property and Internet security.

"Azerbaijan is the leading country in the South Caucasus in the field of intellectual property protection," he said.

Imanov said Azerbaijan is one of the countries combating piracy at the international level.

Copyright protection results

"The measures taken so far have lowered the piracy level in book publishing by almost a half (from 61 to 30 percent) in 2013 compared with 2005. In the audio and video sector, this level fell from 90 to 67 percent and in the software industry, the figure decreased from 96 to 87 percent," he said.

Imanov went on saying that 21 pieces of 13 authors were electronicly registered in 2013. Meanwhile, 21 registration certificates were issued. From 1996 to the present day, the agency has registered more than nine thousand works and objects.

"At present, Azerbaijan is preparing a national strategy in the field of copyright protection," he said.

The national strategy, which involves industrial property rights, trademarks, and patents will be offered in the "Azerbaijan 2020: Vision into the Future."

This summary of the strategy will be presented in 2014, Imanov noted.

"The openness of the Internet, the availability of works in digital format for the users are in stark contradiction with the protection of authors and owners rights," he stressed.

"This leads to the conflict of interests and violations of rights. To bring all this to a "common denominator", the WIPO has appealed to member states to ensure that each country presents its projects based on national legislation. Azerbaijan will also present in the project," he said.

International copyright protection law

Imanov said the main objective of the project is protecting the copyright in the Internet within administrative laws.

He noted that in this regard three options are mainly used across the globe.

"The first option is withdrawing the concept of copyright from the Internet and using only the free works with reference to the author. The second option is that pieces are used after a payment to the author. The third option is tightening legislation and restriction for users. Azerbaijan will put forward its proposals," he said.

Azerbaijan is mainly interested in the second option, Imanov stressed.

"The author will be paid when their pieces are used," he said.

Imanov added the Internet speed in Azerbaijan is higher than any other members of CIS and Central Asia countries. Moreover, the country is ranked 20th in Internet accessibility and the 41st in social networks activities.