TIRANA, Oct. 14 – The Albanian government has drafted a new copyright law, bringing it in line with EU legislation and replacing a 2005 law which was one of the reasons for the poor progress on intellectual property rights in Albania.
The new law on copyright and neighbouring rights strengthens penalties and monitoring and uses new filters for more efficient measures for importers, exporters, producers and users of cultural, art and scientific rights, says a report on the draft law which has been submitted to parliament for approval.
The new law, offering a broader coverage of cases involving administrative and criminal offences, has been drafted under EU assistance and envisages fines of 100,000 lek (€703) to 500,000 lek (€3,513) for copyright violations for both legal and natural persons compared to 10,000 lek (€73) to 100,000 (€703) for the majority of violations under the current law.
In its latest country report on Albania, the European Commission highlighted little progress regarding intellectual property rights in Albania and called for urgent action to adopt the new copyright law, strengthen inspection capabilities by establishing the market surveillance inspectorate, improving the collective management system and applying effective sanctions for infringements. “On industrial property, the legislative framework was improved but administrative capacity should be increased. Further awareness-raising of intellectual property rights is key,” said the Commission.
Respecting the work of others, be it a book, a CD, a painting, software, or an architectural design, is key to fair competition, creativity and innovation, says the European Commission, which has been assisting the Albanian Copyright Office to improve the implementation of existing laws and raised awareness of the importance of copyright and related rights for authors, businesses and society at large.
Disrespect for copyrights directly hurts fair competition, jobs and growth, the promotion of which is especially important in times of crisis.
Photocopying a book means that the author, the publisher and the employees of the publishing house do not reap the benefits of their labour, and end up discouraged from further artistic, literary or scientific work, say EU experts.
