Piracy in Media and the Bangladesh Scenario
Cover Story
Piracy in Media and the Bangladesh Scenario
Faizul Khan Tanim writes on how piracy in the media is affecting emerging economies like Bangladesh. The piracy phenomenon is described as a pricing problem internationally but the scene is quite different in Bangladesh
Here in Bangladesh, high price of media gadgets; low income; negligence of law enforcement agencies; very low royalty for artistes; zero awareness of music or media content fans; and cheap digital technologies are the main ingredients of media piracy, experts believe.
So far, there has been no study or survey that has been conducted to figure out as to how much revenue Bangladesh looses per year due to media piracy. However, according to an online report published by Havocscope Black Markets – an online database of black market activities, the music piracy market value in Bangladesh stands at US$ 180 million which is 11 times higher than our neighbouring country India.
Furthermore, according to the International Property Rights Index 2011 Report, Bangladesh, in terms of Intellectual Property (IP) protection, positions itself at 125th out of 129 countries.
The stakeholders of our media industry now believe it is of utmost importance that we have such kind of study or surveys to find out how much exactly Bangladesh is loosing due to piracy and to what extent government, especially the Copyright Office and The Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the private sector entities like Bangladesh Copyright and IP Forum or likeminded organizations, should come forward and work together.
Artistes also allege that one of the major reasons of piracy is that there is never any official count of album sales and neither is there any audits done on sales figures which is why the royalty system never became successful.
On the other hand, record label owners blame that the artistes give away their intellectual properties – their songs – absolutely free to online websites and FM radio stations, from where no revenue is generated. And this is only done for the artistes self promotions which are why even if the album is commercially successful, it does not sell according to the projected amount of sales.
Speaking to A B M Hamidul Mishbah, Barrister-at-Law, Supreme Court of Bangladesh and Counsel of The Legal Circle, he said, “Lack of awareness about the existing Copyright Law has been the predominant reason for the ever increasing piracy in Bangladesh. Users of intellectual property or any creative works, that is, contents used in media and within the creative and media industry, hardly pay any heed to observe the Copyright Law. Almost all of the media houses including the government owned ones do not seem to comply with the copyright law and do not have an internal compliance system in place, as far as media laws or copyright law are concerned”.
“Government’s responsibility does not end with the enactment of a particular legislation. In addition it should also take adequate steps to create awareness among the relevant stakeholders (media workers, entrepreneurs, business/corporate entities, education institutions, students and youths) of a particular law and build capacity among the appropriate branch of administrative and law enforcement agency wings. Judiciary, judges, must be trained and made capable of handling IPR related cases. We have family courts, company courts; likewise IP Courts must be in place too. Enforcement of existing copyright laws should be prioritized and made strict. Further, the government must include importance of IPR within the national education policy to allow young students learning about the importance of IP and refrain from piracy”, Misbah added.
He also said, regarding the actors associated with piracy in media that these stakeholders, especially media houses, corporate entities like cell phone companies, record labels, FM radio stations, students and youths, are the main actors.
Media houses hardly observe the Copyright Law. Cell phone companies do not quite conduct the appropriate due diligence while using contents or creative works and selling them. A cell phone company’s weak internal legal compliance system is largely responsible for this. Record labels and the individual artists and creative lots are not even aware of their rights and obligations. Artists give away their rights without realizing how best they can exploit them.
Enquiring about what laws are there to stop piracy and what more needs to be done, Misbah informed The Independent that: we have the Copyright Act 2000 and Copyright Rules 2006 that are adequate enough to curb down the piracy if implemented effectively. In addition, we may have some sort of media regulation relevant to media houses handling creative and IP works in place. Furthermore, Bangladesh government should make efforts to sign the International Internet Treaty.
Some citizens and media specialists believe that media piracy is a form of income generation technique and that it is a form of entrepreneurship.
Lawyers like Misbah do not agree to this statement. According to him, if we do not respect or recognize the value of creativity and the creative works that are the brain child of others, we will discourage creativity and creative works being made or produced and soon be out of intellectual and creative works. We should recognize creativity and creative works by paying appropriate incentives to the creators.
However, managing director of Amader Gaan Ltd. / www.amaderGaan.com, the only web portal of Bangladesh fighting piracy in media, Faysal Islam has a different take on the matter “Well if you are talking about digital media piracy in general, the statement is true for most cases except maybe for the entrepreneurship part. But then again, we all know how Napster turned out to be”.
“As for digital media piracy in Bangladesh, I think many of us do not realise that most of these piracy initiators are usually students or young adults.
Most of the sites have a short life and are usually poorly designed and maintained. Thankfully, the digital media piracy for Bangla music has yet not reached a stage where more serious minded individuals or organizations can exploit and build a cash cow around it. That is why we have to take a strong stand against piracy and not let it incline”, Islam added.
AmaderGaan.com is run from Canada and executed in Bangladesh, and with the exposure of Western Media laws and practices, Faysal Islam gave some interesting insight on how piracy is curbed in North America.
He said: “We have to understand something first, that is, piracy will never be eradicated fully. The Internet will not allow that and that there is a generation out there who will never pay for entertainment online.”
"The first and foremost thing that needs to be done to curb this social disease is to present listeners with a viable alternative. The most common question that floats around is that Why should I pay when I can get the SAME thing in a pirated website for FREE?
The trick while answering this question is to point out how the paid alternative yields a better listening experience, whether it is the quality of sound or the seamless accessibility of products available. And amaderGaan.com Music Stop provides just that.
We have ensured that we provide our listeners with studio quality sound and the whole CD booklet, all properly tagged and categorized. These highlights to the potential listener the value of purchasing music legally and the benefits that come with it. You can always expect a quality service for your money spent”, Islam added.
He said more that the reason digital music purchase is on the rise is because listeners have begun to realise the far superior service that leading e-stores like iTunes,Amazon, e-Music provide. And once they are in with the idea, they are more likely to recommend these to others. So this social disease can be and is being turned into a social cure.
"Another key aspect that can be attributed to this is the lack of education. We have to spread and educate the listeners about piracy but in a way that relates to their listening experience.
The whole industry will have to put aside all their differences and start a mass social educating movement, the way we did for vaccination or health related diseases”, Islam added more.
The other major step that missing is a regulatory body and a set of copyright rules that are clear and easy to implement.
Islam believes that, to this very day the music related rules that are present in Bangladesh are very much backdated and hardly accommodate the digital world and there is no governing body comprised of people from all aspects of the industry to implement and oversee the rules in a positive way.
In North America, for example, there are association like RIAA & CRIA, who are charged with overseeing all copyright aspects and protecting the rights of the artists and their work is their top priority.
There are numerous examples where websites have been shut down by law enforcement agencies and people associated with them have been fined and in a few cases jailed for their actions.
The Independent also spoke to music industries owners association of Bangladesh (MIB) which officially started their journey on June 8 2009 through a launching event and press conference at Press Club with the motto to resist audio-video piracy at any cost and they ask for governmental action to help this business sector to sustain itself.
Speaking to the president of MIB, Nazmul Haque Bhuiyan, also owner of record label G-Series, he said, “There are three ways by which we are losing a lot of revenue – The FM radio stations not giving any royalty for the songs they are airing, the illegal websites hosting mp3s for free download and a large amount of shops selling pen drive/memory cards who provide illegally reproduced media contents in CDs and pen drives for only Taka 20 to 35”.
“Even four years back, there used to be almost 1,000 audio/video albums released each year but today, due to piracy in media, this release has come down to a measly 100 to 200 albums. All the above mentioned three reasons are the cause of this downfall. Moreover, there was a time, 10 years back, when we used to sell 90 per cent of Bangla albums as opposed to 10 percent Hindi albums but today, due to the FM stations playing more Hindi songs, this ratio has come down to 30 percent Bangla album sales against 70 percent Hindi albums. This is absolutely disastrous and together we all need to fight for our media and promote Bangla songs to ensure our success”, Bhuiyan added.
This article was first published in The Independent's Weekend Magazine June 01 2012 - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=39&date=2012-06-01
More on piracy:
# "Downloading Discourages All Of Us" by Saquib Chowdhury - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=43&date=2012-06-01
# "Pirates In Bangladesh" by Katerina Don - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=46&date=2012-06-01
# "Online Piracy: Anathema Of Bangladeshi Music Industry" by Ishtiaque Hossain - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=48&date=2012-06-01
Faizul Khan Tanim writes on how piracy in the media is affecting emerging economies like Bangladesh. The piracy phenomenon is described as a pricing problem internationally but the scene is quite different in Bangladesh
Here in Bangladesh, high price of media gadgets; low income; negligence of law enforcement agencies; very low royalty for artistes; zero awareness of music or media content fans; and cheap digital technologies are the main ingredients of media piracy, experts believe.
So far, there has been no study or survey that has been conducted to figure out as to how much revenue Bangladesh looses per year due to media piracy. However, according to an online report published by Havocscope Black Markets – an online database of black market activities, the music piracy market value in Bangladesh stands at US$ 180 million which is 11 times higher than our neighbouring country India.
Furthermore, according to the International Property Rights Index 2011 Report, Bangladesh, in terms of Intellectual Property (IP) protection, positions itself at 125th out of 129 countries.
The stakeholders of our media industry now believe it is of utmost importance that we have such kind of study or surveys to find out how much exactly Bangladesh is loosing due to piracy and to what extent government, especially the Copyright Office and The Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the private sector entities like Bangladesh Copyright and IP Forum or likeminded organizations, should come forward and work together.
Artistes also allege that one of the major reasons of piracy is that there is never any official count of album sales and neither is there any audits done on sales figures which is why the royalty system never became successful.
On the other hand, record label owners blame that the artistes give away their intellectual properties – their songs – absolutely free to online websites and FM radio stations, from where no revenue is generated. And this is only done for the artistes self promotions which are why even if the album is commercially successful, it does not sell according to the projected amount of sales.
Speaking to A B M Hamidul Mishbah, Barrister-at-Law, Supreme Court of Bangladesh and Counsel of The Legal Circle, he said, “Lack of awareness about the existing Copyright Law has been the predominant reason for the ever increasing piracy in Bangladesh. Users of intellectual property or any creative works, that is, contents used in media and within the creative and media industry, hardly pay any heed to observe the Copyright Law. Almost all of the media houses including the government owned ones do not seem to comply with the copyright law and do not have an internal compliance system in place, as far as media laws or copyright law are concerned”.
“Government’s responsibility does not end with the enactment of a particular legislation. In addition it should also take adequate steps to create awareness among the relevant stakeholders (media workers, entrepreneurs, business/corporate entities, education institutions, students and youths) of a particular law and build capacity among the appropriate branch of administrative and law enforcement agency wings. Judiciary, judges, must be trained and made capable of handling IPR related cases. We have family courts, company courts; likewise IP Courts must be in place too. Enforcement of existing copyright laws should be prioritized and made strict. Further, the government must include importance of IPR within the national education policy to allow young students learning about the importance of IP and refrain from piracy”, Misbah added.
He also said, regarding the actors associated with piracy in media that these stakeholders, especially media houses, corporate entities like cell phone companies, record labels, FM radio stations, students and youths, are the main actors.
Media houses hardly observe the Copyright Law. Cell phone companies do not quite conduct the appropriate due diligence while using contents or creative works and selling them. A cell phone company’s weak internal legal compliance system is largely responsible for this. Record labels and the individual artists and creative lots are not even aware of their rights and obligations. Artists give away their rights without realizing how best they can exploit them.
Enquiring about what laws are there to stop piracy and what more needs to be done, Misbah informed The Independent that: we have the Copyright Act 2000 and Copyright Rules 2006 that are adequate enough to curb down the piracy if implemented effectively. In addition, we may have some sort of media regulation relevant to media houses handling creative and IP works in place. Furthermore, Bangladesh government should make efforts to sign the International Internet Treaty.
Some citizens and media specialists believe that media piracy is a form of income generation technique and that it is a form of entrepreneurship.
Lawyers like Misbah do not agree to this statement. According to him, if we do not respect or recognize the value of creativity and the creative works that are the brain child of others, we will discourage creativity and creative works being made or produced and soon be out of intellectual and creative works. We should recognize creativity and creative works by paying appropriate incentives to the creators.
However, managing director of Amader Gaan Ltd. / www.amaderGaan.com, the only web portal of Bangladesh fighting piracy in media, Faysal Islam has a different take on the matter “Well if you are talking about digital media piracy in general, the statement is true for most cases except maybe for the entrepreneurship part. But then again, we all know how Napster turned out to be”.
“As for digital media piracy in Bangladesh, I think many of us do not realise that most of these piracy initiators are usually students or young adults.
Most of the sites have a short life and are usually poorly designed and maintained. Thankfully, the digital media piracy for Bangla music has yet not reached a stage where more serious minded individuals or organizations can exploit and build a cash cow around it. That is why we have to take a strong stand against piracy and not let it incline”, Islam added.
AmaderGaan.com is run from Canada and executed in Bangladesh, and with the exposure of Western Media laws and practices, Faysal Islam gave some interesting insight on how piracy is curbed in North America.
He said: “We have to understand something first, that is, piracy will never be eradicated fully. The Internet will not allow that and that there is a generation out there who will never pay for entertainment online.”
"The first and foremost thing that needs to be done to curb this social disease is to present listeners with a viable alternative. The most common question that floats around is that Why should I pay when I can get the SAME thing in a pirated website for FREE?
The trick while answering this question is to point out how the paid alternative yields a better listening experience, whether it is the quality of sound or the seamless accessibility of products available. And amaderGaan.com Music Stop provides just that.
We have ensured that we provide our listeners with studio quality sound and the whole CD booklet, all properly tagged and categorized. These highlights to the potential listener the value of purchasing music legally and the benefits that come with it. You can always expect a quality service for your money spent”, Islam added.
He said more that the reason digital music purchase is on the rise is because listeners have begun to realise the far superior service that leading e-stores like iTunes,Amazon, e-Music provide. And once they are in with the idea, they are more likely to recommend these to others. So this social disease can be and is being turned into a social cure.
"Another key aspect that can be attributed to this is the lack of education. We have to spread and educate the listeners about piracy but in a way that relates to their listening experience.
The whole industry will have to put aside all their differences and start a mass social educating movement, the way we did for vaccination or health related diseases”, Islam added more.
The other major step that missing is a regulatory body and a set of copyright rules that are clear and easy to implement.
Islam believes that, to this very day the music related rules that are present in Bangladesh are very much backdated and hardly accommodate the digital world and there is no governing body comprised of people from all aspects of the industry to implement and oversee the rules in a positive way.
In North America, for example, there are association like RIAA & CRIA, who are charged with overseeing all copyright aspects and protecting the rights of the artists and their work is their top priority.
There are numerous examples where websites have been shut down by law enforcement agencies and people associated with them have been fined and in a few cases jailed for their actions.
The Independent also spoke to music industries owners association of Bangladesh (MIB) which officially started their journey on June 8 2009 through a launching event and press conference at Press Club with the motto to resist audio-video piracy at any cost and they ask for governmental action to help this business sector to sustain itself.
Speaking to the president of MIB, Nazmul Haque Bhuiyan, also owner of record label G-Series, he said, “There are three ways by which we are losing a lot of revenue – The FM radio stations not giving any royalty for the songs they are airing, the illegal websites hosting mp3s for free download and a large amount of shops selling pen drive/memory cards who provide illegally reproduced media contents in CDs and pen drives for only Taka 20 to 35”.
“Even four years back, there used to be almost 1,000 audio/video albums released each year but today, due to piracy in media, this release has come down to a measly 100 to 200 albums. All the above mentioned three reasons are the cause of this downfall. Moreover, there was a time, 10 years back, when we used to sell 90 per cent of Bangla albums as opposed to 10 percent Hindi albums but today, due to the FM stations playing more Hindi songs, this ratio has come down to 30 percent Bangla album sales against 70 percent Hindi albums. This is absolutely disastrous and together we all need to fight for our media and promote Bangla songs to ensure our success”, Bhuiyan added.
This article was first published in The Independent's Weekend Magazine June 01 2012 - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=39&date=2012-06-01
More on piracy:
# "Downloading Discourages All Of Us" by Saquib Chowdhury - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=43&date=2012-06-01
# "Pirates In Bangladesh" by Katerina Don - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=46&date=2012-06-01
# "Online Piracy: Anathema Of Bangladeshi Music Industry" by Ishtiaque Hossain - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=48&date=2012-06-01
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