Designing copyright laws to combat digital piracy and effectively balance proprietary and public interests in Bangladesh

The increasing incidence of digital piracy using internet technologies has prompted nations around the world to amend their copyright laws to more appropriately balance the protection of the proprietorial rights of copyright owners with the public right to access to knowledge. Since the inception of the copyright law, such amendments of legislation have been commensurate with technological invention. However, in recent years, the rapid and the continuously evolving nature of digital technologies has made this process of law reform significantly more challenging. Moreover, as knowledge has a critical role in economic growth in the information age and enhances human capabilities for both the cultural and social development, a developing nation such as Bangladesh faces significant challenges in designing effective digital copyright laws. Rampant piracy of copyrighted goods, such as almost 90% in case of software and 100% in sound recording or books or movies, have significantly escalated with the increased access to digital technologies in Bangladesh. Consequently, while Bangladesh is required to enact laws to protect digital copyright in order to advance economic growth and fulfil its vision of becoming ‘Digital Bangladesh’, it also needs to provide wider access to online contents to increase the knowledge and capability of its citizens. In such a context, the central research question to be addressed by this thesis is how can Bangladesh expand its knowledge base and fulfil its developmental goals by enacting digital copyright laws that effectively balance the protection of the interest of copyright owners with the public’s need to access to knowledge. In order to address this central research question applying doctrinal, comparative and normative methodologies, the thesis has analysed the public policy basis of digital copyright law, considered the human right to access to knowledge, examined the existing copyright laws of Bangladesh and analysed the merits of Australian and the USA laws in this area. Based on this critical analysis, the research recommends that Bangladesh is required to enact digital copyright law, amending in key areas of current copyright law, to effectively balance the competing interests of copyright owners and the wider public.