Your Advocate
This week Your Advocate is Barrister Tanjib-ul Alam Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh. He is the head of the chamber of a renowned law firm, namely, 'Tanjib-ul Alam and Associates ',which has expertise mainly in commercial law, corporate law, admiralty, employment and labor law, land law, banking law, constitutional law, telecom law, energy law, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Intellectual Property Rights and in conducting litigations before courts of different hierarchies.
Query
Dear Sir, I am an artist. I have done more than 200 paintings and sculpture till now. I want to keep those exclusive. For that reason I want to acquire a copyright/registration of my works. But I am confused whether taking a copyright certificate is much expensive or is it actually necessary or not and if I do intend to take it do I have to appoint a lawyer? As a layman I really don't have any idea of legal area. Please advice me.
Monisha Habib
Baridhara, Dhaka
Response
Thank you for your query. It is indeed encouraging to see that owners of copyright works are increasingly becoming aware of their rights. This is a good sign for the protection of intellectual property in Bangladesh. As a matter of fact, a person becomes of the owner of copyright of an "art work " or any other copyright work the moment it is created. Therefore, ownership of copyright of a particular work is not dependent on the registration of the same with the Registrar of Copyright.
With regard to your paintings, it will fall within the definition of "art work" as such you automatically acquire the exclusive right to exploit your intellectual property. Therefore, except the owner, no one else has the authority to make copy of the work in any form either in the form of reproduction, copying or converting a three dimensional work into two dimension work or vice versa for any commercial purposes or to commercially exploit your work without your permission or license under the Copyright Act, 2000.
The main reason behind registration of copyright is to use the fact of registration as evidence in the event of any dispute over the ownership of the copyright work. If you are contemplating that someone is going to copy your work and then claim that you do not have any right over the work that you have done, then the registration will act in your favour as an evidence of your ownership. It should also be kept in mind that the registration is not an absolute evidence of ownership. If the person who challenges the registration can establish that the copyright work that has been registered in your name actually belongs to him, then the Registrar of Copyright may cancel the registration.
For the purposes of registration of copyright, it is not mandatory that you must appoint a lawyer. Since the process of registration is cumbersome and requires preparation of document in accordance with the Copyright Right Rules, 2006, there are chances that a person who has no knowledge of law may commit some mistakes thereby jeopardising the whole process of registration. The registration of copyright does not involve huge amount of money. The registration fees for each copyright work is Taka 1000. Since each of your paintings and sculptures will be treated as a separate copyright works, registration of all these works will cost you a substantial amount of money. If however, you are planning to sell these paintings, then it may not be worth seeking registration of the work as it would amount to selling the copyright work and all rights related to that particular work will vest in the purchaser of your painting. Had your work been a literary work such as a fiction or poetry, then it would have been worth considering the registration.
Best regards and good luck with your painting.
For detailed query contact: info@tanjibalam.com
