Criminal Protection of Copyright and Related Rights "Study of Iraqi Law and Legislation of some Arab Countries"

Abstract

Due to the technological and industrial revolution taking place in the world, protecting copyrights became a modern issue related in social, economic, and commercial terms to drawing out states’ policies. Therefore, this forms a strong incentive to tackle this subject in service of the society in its emerging and urgent matters. The deferent increasing violations – seen and heard in media – of the rights and efforts of others, including plagiarizing copyrighted works, trading them and making benefit from such trade, should be drawn to the attention of the law to stipulate jurisdictions against such violations and enforce the proper penalties thereto. In consideration of the writer’s intangible, and financial rights, the serious consequences that effect the writer in his life and after death, copyrights in Arabic countries did not satisfy with intensifying the enforcing of temporary and interim measures, as well as civil sanctions against such violations. Nevertheless, it further forced criminal sanctions against who violates copyrights, because of the deterrence power of the criminal sanctions and its swift procedures. It is undebatable that the human civilization rises by the hands of its diligent workers. It also rises by the brainchildren, ideas and reflections of its thinkers and creators. Thus, we may say that the degree of development of any society is measured by measuring how much care that society allocates for the said group to encourage their efforts, boost their abilities, enhance their skills, and create the legal and material grounds that preserve such creative and productive minds to invest in the development and progress of the society. The said aspects carry a great importance and deserve to be researched and studied. Furthermore, as not many people are writers or reader, and as publishing houses are few, I determined to research the subject (Criminal Protection of Copyright and Related Rights “Study of Iraqi Law and Legislation of Some Arab countries”). Tackling the protection of copyrights and the rights related thereto dictates the research to be divided into three demands, as follows: The first demand: the crimes stipulated in the copyright protection legislation. The second demand: the crime of imitation The third demand: specific or determined criminal penalties for such crimes.