Creativity needs to be protected

NEW DELHI: At a time when remixes and lifting other people''s work is the name of the game, a creative writer or musician has reasons to be worried.
The worry is the same for an engineer, a tool-maker, a craftsman, an interior decorator or a painter. It applies to every individual who, for a living, has to use his intellect to create something new.
Even scientific inventions and writings that are guarded against piracy by several acts, are subject to plagiarism.For many books by foreign authors are sold in India, either reprinted or xeroxed.
All this has been possible because of inadequate intellectual property laws in India. The result is that almost every original thinker in the country has to worry about the fate of his or her works after death.
But the state-owned Indira Gandhi National Open University (Ignou) has evolved a project to educate people about the ways and means to protect one''s intellectual products.
This month it has come out with a laboriously-defined programme to create awareness among the budding intellects creating products. It will also enable them to regularise their onslaughts on the pirates.
A three-month awareness programme is slated to begin from next month followed by a regular programme in the subject.
With a view to educating writers, scientists, software programmers, thinkers, economists and all professionals who have something original to offer — the university has slated a programme to address first how to obtain this rights and then how to exercise them in the real world.
A host of rights professionals in judiciary and academia are said to be following the guidelines of Geneva-based World Wide Academy (WWA).
The three-month awareness course will be later substantiated from July onwards by a one-year diploma course as a systematic education for professionals to defend themselves against piracy.
The motivator seems WWA''s Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation''s (WIPO) think-tank Pushpendra Rai. At a recent teleconferencing at the university on the topic Demystifying IPR: Why and How, he professed: "The intellectual property rights have more relevance now than before and act as stimulus for newer activities as it encompasses law, economics, commerce, psychology, science, medical and other diverse fields. It is a powerful tool for economic development. It facilitates access to technological information and development, commercial utilisation, protection of trademark and encourages competition."
A question that went unaddressed was - Can the IPR Acts transcend borders? Evidently every nation will try to frame its laws to stop piracy of intellectual properties.
Avoiding the issue the university''s vice-chancellor HP Dikshit promised to devise "dynamic strategies for new programmes to meet the divergent needs of the society".
He also announced that the WIPO and IGNOU were working together to take the IPR programmes to the metros for the present, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Pune.
Will it actually stop piracy in intellectual products in the country such as ceiling fans, music cassettes, notations of maestros, written works such as fictions and academic books — which are flooding Indian markets? This question also went unaddressed.
Ignou Pro Vice-Chancellor SC Garg, however, keeps a straight face, "Through National Centre for Distance Learning in Intellectual Property Rights, we will deal with IPR''s basic components -- such as Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks, Industrial Designs, with an emphasis on the present scenario in India. Of course it will become a successful intervention."
But will the ground realities vindicate Garg''s claims?