BECOME A FREE-RIDER OF COPYRIGHT PROTECTED WORKS
The policy of granting copyright protection to authors of literary and scientific works is to promote and encourage creativity and thereby increase the
volume and quality of the production of these works.[1] Therefore, copyright protection is generally considered a sine qua non for countries to promote and encourage production of literary and scientific works necessary to their economic and social development. Although protection of copyright owners’ rights is essential to promote and encourage production of literary and scientific works, copyright law is not exclusively concerned with protection of copyright owners’ rights. It is also concerned with ensuring and encouraging wide dissemination of literary and scientific works. As was observed in chapter 1, developing countries have special problems as to the dissemination of scientific and technical works (or access to these works) owing to their level of economic development, on one hand, and the levels of scientific and technical development, on the other. As Olian pointed out, ‘Of the many problems facing developing countries, none is more urgent that the need for wider dissemination of [scientific and technical] knowledge, for ultimately this will act to further the educational, cultural, and technical development of their people.’
While protection of copyright owners’ rights is important for developing countries to encourage their authors and publishing industries, striking a proper balance between such protection and the public access to literary and scientific works is equally important to them. This is also because access to literary and scientific works and protection of copyright owners’ rights are two sides of the same coin. While protection of copyright owners’ rights is a stimulus for the production of literary and scientific works, this also requires wide dissemination of literary and scientific works since it is not only the general public but also the authors who will need to use these works for the production of new works. Okediji observed that ‘[w]riters and creators do not exist or create in a vacuum. Indeed, certain genres of works, styles of creativity, and modes of expression specifically and deliberately incorporate, reproduce, or transform pre-existing works.’
Given this predicament, becoming a free-rider of copyright protected works by abandoning copyright protection altogether does not provide optimal benefits for developing countries. Moreover, such an approach would inevitably hamper the accomplishment of their major goals, such as economic development and the advancement of science and literature.[2]
