Copyright legislation was passed in Belize in the year two thousand - but according to a new copyright advocacy group, piracy is still widespread.
The Belize book industry association celebrated International book day today with the second annual bookfair and the launching of the Belize Copyright licensing agency, referred to as "BECLA."
They are promoting publishing, reading and the protection of copyright laws. They says its about sustaining, supporting and protecting book publishing in Belize:…
Jorge Aldana, Treasurer
"Please promote the idea of books. Books will not go away, believe you me, when all the cd's rot and all the computers dissolve, there will be at least one book that remains."
Monsterrat Casademunt, Chair - BECLA
"Piracy has a most devastating effect both on copyright industries and on nation's economy. Some 300 billion of photocopies of copyright materials are made worldwide. The shear volume of photocopy represents a threat to the creative industries, if right holders are not properly remunerated."
Luciola Castillo, National Library Services
"Belize still has a growing literal society and in promoting that they want to establish that the community has some viable mains of producing their work and if writers, singers and artist and
everyone that has some creativity, produces it and there is a copyright for it then we know that they will benefit from it. On the other hand if there no copyright to make sure that they are owners of what their intellectual property is then we will have a free for all society and that is not what we want to produce. We want to produce free for all information but not a free for all society that has everyone pirating everything so that we can make a quick buck out of it but at the same time forgetting the artists themselves because Belize does have a copyright law, however the entire society is not being educated on it, so we are using this venue as one of the educational forums for that."
Events under the same theme will be held throughout the coming week…
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