Minister Gashi: Kosovo has made giant steps with the approval of modern laws on copyright and related rights

26.04.2018

Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, Kujtim Gashi participated in the conference "Intellectual Property Rights" which was organized on the World Intellectual Property Day, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports and Kosovo Customs. The motto of this year's conference is "Women in Innovation and Creativity".

Minister Gashi in his address speech at the opening of this conference said: "This year's motto Women in innovation and creativity is a good and important motto, because we all know that women are very creative and innovative, and that women are the force of change. Institutions especially have to work to support and encourage as much as they can so women engage in creative work and innovation, and we would secure their special and valuable contribution to our culture and society. "

Further, Minister Gashi said that "intellectual property is of great importance for the development and advancement of the country's culture, science and technology" and added: "We are working to create a copyright system where creators, performers and other copyright holders are compensated and their works are treated honestly and with dignity, this is also the purpose of the copyright law and mission of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports. Cultural copyright creation today is the future of cultural heritage tomorrow, we should encourage and give incentives to creators, artists and investors in their work and investments. "

"Kosovo has made great steps with the approval of modern laws on copyright and related rights", Gashi went on to say that this is also assessed in the European Commission Progress Report for 2018.

Minister Gashi also spoke about reaching agreement on general tariffs between the Collective Management Association in the field of "APIK" music and television and radio representatives, adding that "this is a historic step for the country that provides implementation copyright and compensation of authors, performers and producers. The new Anti-Piracy Strategy and the Special Compensation Regulation will soon be adopted, thus ensuring the continued fulfillment of international standards and enforcement of copyright.

Also, Minister Gashi said that "enforcement of copyright remains a challenge for law enforcement institutions to continue to take action to ensure copyright enforcement. In particular, copyright enforcement in the digital environment requires more engagement and collaboration with authors, performers and their associations, in order to be as successful as possible in creating an authorship system where creators of performers are protected compensated for their work ".

Minister Kujtim Gashi, at the end of his speech at this conference, emphasized the implementation of the law, saying that "only by implementing the copyright law there may be a development of artistic, scientific and cultural creativity in general, including here the development of creative industries and print and electronic media together with radio and television".

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