KARACHI, Feb 29: The violation of copyrights, a vital constituent of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), has increased substantially during the last two and a half years due to non-functional status of the copyrights appellate board, lawyers dealing in IPR cases revealed on Friday.

It has not been reconstituted after the expiry of term of office of the last chairman of the board, which has representatives from booksellers, writers, publishers, music firms and the government.

A large number of appeals against the decision of the copyright registrar are pending waiting for the reconstitution of the board by the federal government.

Pakistan has greatly improved its score on strict maintenance of intellectual property rights in the country, a condition by the USA for investment in Pakistan and for market access for Pakistani products, after the formation of Intellectual Property Organisation.The subject of IPR, which was previously looked after by the ministry of commerce, was placed directly under the cabinet division to give attention to the issue it deserved.

Mr Karimullah, an IPR advocate, told Dawn that a number of businessmen got registered their literary and cultural work with the local copyright directorate, which neither had any proper data of registration nor arrangements to search the previous registrations.

He said that owners of original work were suffering due to the prevailing situation, which had benefited greatly the imitators business, which was thriving in the absence of an appeal forum. In some cases, the imitators have lodged complaint with police against original owners threatening them with legal action.

He said that a large number of appeals pleading cancellation of registration of imitating works were pending. To a question, he said that on average he filed 200 to 300 appeals for cancellation of registration of counterfeit work every month.

The appellate board is generally headed by a retired judge and there is no dearth of judges in the country, the lawyer said, adding that the existing tussle between the government and judges might be one reason for delay in reconstituting the appellate board.

Mr Zain of Paramount Publisher told Dawn that piracy of books was on its peak in the absence of strict application of IPR laws in the country. The local textbooks from the primary to the college levels are victim of piracy, ‘killing’ the local authorship.

Any book written by a local author, which becomes popular among readers, was pirated while the copyrights laws provide no protection to the author and publisher, he added. He said that most of the foreign publishers had offices in India, which was a large market for books on professional subjects like engineering, medicines, computer science, etc. Due to difference in currency value, a book available in India at Rs300 costs Rs550 in Pakistan, which gives rise to piracy.