Damascus-SANA
Encouraging creative and intellectual production and protecting the rights of its owners is one of the tasks that the Ministry of Culture seeks to carry out, based on the fact that the promotion and protection of intellectual property would push the wheel of creative and innovative activity forward.
These efforts aim to preserve and protect the intellectual product from theft, piracy and illegal trade and to prevent others from dealing with it without obtaining prior permission from its owner.
To achieve this, Legislative Decree No. 62 of 2013 was issued in Syria containing provisions for copyright protection and its executive instructions in 2014 to develop work in the Department of Copyright and Neighboring Rights, which is located within the organizational structure of the Ministry of Culture, while the other branch of intellectual property, which is industrial and commercial property, is with the Ministry of Trade The Ministry of Interior and Consumer Protection, where the two entities work together to develop vocabulary and tools for working with intellectual property.
These rights include all forms of production of the human mind, whether oral, written, pictorial or digital, and whatever the way they are expressed.
Head of the Department of Copyright and Neighboring Rights Protection in the Directorate of Legal Affairs and Copyright Protection in the Ministry of Culture, Basima Al-Nabaki, explained to SANA that the department has granted nearly 6000 certificates and deposits since its establishment for many distinguished works in different fields.
According to Al-Nabaki, copyright includes the protection of every product bearing an innovative literary, scientific or artistic character in many fields, including performers, actors, artists, musicians, producers of sound recordings, radio and television programmes, novels, poems, plays, films, series scripts, musical compositions, choreography, oil paintings, drawings, photographs, architectural works and works of engineering. advertisements, maps, technical drawings, references, newspapers, computer programs and databases.
The department seeks to preserve the rights, both material and moral, in addition to the rights of the authors and the protection of neighboring rights represented by the performers, and to determine the legal periods in force for this protection, both material and moral, in several ways and methods according to criteria specified and clarified by the decree.
Regarding the benefit derived from the protection of copyright and related rights, Al-Nabaki pointed out that it contributes mainly to the advancement of creative and innovative activity, as it acknowledges their achievements, guarantees them fair financial rewards, stimulates their activity and advances their achievements. economic and social.
Creators of protected works according to Al-Nabki enjoy what the law calls the exclusive right to use the product or to authorize others to use it based on agreed terms, including reproduction of works in all forms, printing and sound recording, performing it publicly, transmitting it to the public, broadcasting it, translating it into other languages, or modifying the work such as converting the novel into Scenario.
The Ministry of Culture, through the Department of Copyright and Neighboring Rights Protection, participates in many workshops organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization. It is also partnering with the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection to work on preparing the national strategy for intellectual property, where many agreements with relevant authorities have been completed.
Al-Nabaki pointed out that Syria has signed several agreements with the World Intellectual Property Organization with the aim of protecting works of all kinds, especially with regard to keeping pace with technological progress, which has provided new ways to distribute innovations via the Internet to prevent access to and use of innovative works on the Internet without permission.
The twenty-sixth of the current month of April will witness the world's celebrations of the World Intellectual Property Day, during which it will present experiences of several countries that have been able to achieve economic, social and cultural development within all fields of intellectual property.
Amani Farooj