Copyright In Bangladesh Case Study

'Copyright protection of Writers and publishers in Bangladesh'

As the biggest month-long book fair 'Ekushey Boi Mela' is helding, let's discuss about the rights of a writer over his creative production which is protected by law.

The law which protects the right of a writer is Copyright Act, 2000. Copyright is the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material. Copyright is a bundle of rights guaranteed to the original author for their literary, artistic or dramatic work, such as books, articles, paintings, photographs, musical compositions, recordings, computer programs etc. This

In order to qualify for copyrights the work apart from being original, should satisfy the following conditions:

(a) In the case of published work, it has to be published first in Bangladesh but if it is first published in foreign country, the author must be a citizen of Bangladesh or domicile in Bangladesh at the date of publication, or where the author is dead at the time of publication and the work is published after his death, the author must be citizen of Bangladesh or domicile in Bangladesh at the time of his death.

[It is important to note that if any work is published in Bangladesh and any other country simultaneously, the work should be considered to be first published in Bangladesh. The work shall be considered to be simultaneously published if the difference of days between the publication in Bangladesh and publication in any other country more than 30 days or the time fixed by the Government.]

(b) In case of unpublished work, the author is on the date of making of the work a citizen of Bangladesh or domicile in