Baku, Fineko/abc.az. The Parliamentary Committees on Legal Policy & State Structure and on Science & Education held a joint meeting yesterday.

The committees discussed the Bill on Anti-Piracy & Intellectual Property Rights.

At the meeting Copyright Agency’s head Kamran Imanov informed that problem of piracy exists in Azerbaijan, as well as in developed countries, but at a higher level.

"In recent years, the piracy rate dropped from 98% to 86%, in printing and publishing activities to 40%, and making of audiovisual products from 90% to 68%. This figure is within 20-25% in piracy problem having developed countries. Although compared to its CIS counterparts Azerbaijan’s piracy rate is not so high, we want to obtain the piracy rate in our country to be at the level of developed countries,” Imranov said.

For effective combating against piracy the Agency proposes few-fold tougher penalties.

"Currently, the punitive penalties in protection of intellectual property rights make up 15-20 manats that is an incentive for piracy in Azerbaijan. That is why we propose to tighten the requirements and bring penalties up to 1,000 manats," Imranov said.

The valid Law on Anti-Piracy & Intellectual Property Rights was adopted in 1996.

20.04.2012 09:46