Regulating Copyrights in Cyberspace

The explosive growth of the Internet has created critical new challenges to national and international intellectual property policies. Intellectual Property protection has become the most important issue in Cyberspace. When technological advances has outpaced the law, several problems arise which require an approach suitable to the digital age. Several international conventions have been enacted with principal objective of bringing world law into the digital world. The TRIPS Agreement and the WIPO Copyright Treaty were adapted, which require Member States to give protection to digital content providers against copyright infringements. However, as with the Berne Convention, TRIPS and WIPO do little to reduce substantial disharmonies in the substantive content of national copyright laws. The digital age has seen three controversial views on intellectual properties emerge. There are people who believe that intellectual property should be unprotected and unrestricted. On the opposing view, Intellectual Property Right (IPR) owners feel that the national governments need to pass and enforce laws to protect intellectual property. They claim that violation of intellectual property is inhibiting them from investing and making information more available in cyberspace.Others contend that traditional copyright law is able to deal effectively with digital copyright issues in cyberspace. At the same time, there is a need to maintain a balance between the rights of authors and the larger public interest. The core issue is how to protect copyrighted materials while at the same time serving the public’s right for privacy, information access and dissemination.