Managing Copyrights

A perplexing equation influences the control over copyright by various internal factors such as education and awareness, legal enforcement structure and strength of IP protection, new market users, and pirated software accessibility. External factors include shifting in geographical, political, and cultural conditions or differences. Likewise, internet access and bandwidth grow, specifically; the present boost in Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks pushes the rising piracy rate.

Policy makers can play a critical role in protecting IP through regulating compulsory licensing for the benefits for rights holders, forming anti-trust laws, and constituting strong bonds with the international treaties, such as Berne Union or UCC, to develop and foster IP protection schemes (Usrey, pp. 403-405).

Moreover, education and awareness of copyright fair use and best practices should be a critical role of governments and industry leaders. They can issue Young-People Guides that aim at parents to keep their children cyber-safe and legal on the internet. National campaigns can be run for further public awareness (Kennedy, 06). Best IP laws are useless without proper, effective, and extensive enforcement. Hence, governments can fight copyright infringement and software piracy by establishing legislative, administrative, and judicial enforcement authorities.

In the short run, Internet Service Providers (ISP) may have a key role in the combat against online piracy. ISPs can effectively put controls over their customers infringing copyrighted products or services. ISPs can suspend accounts or internet connection for those who use their service illegally. In the long run, organizations should issue a clearly defined copyright and security policy document to preserve organization's information. It is worthwhile to involve users in some stages of the policy development. Policies should be available online or at other reasonable forms before seeking compliance with the IP laws. In addition, firms should create a procedures document to define user behavior to protect IP rights (Raman, pp. 15-17).

Also, interested parties must what tools or processes violators do or may use, and thus build a defensive mechanism proactively. This can be an effective line of attack to curtail copyright infringement.