Protecting copyright in the Internet age: The Kazakhstani perspective

Abstract

Copyright is granted to authors and right holders of literary, artistic, musical and other creative works since the creation of such works. It should be noted that some fundamental legal frameworks such as the Berne Convention, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties, and the Kazakhstani law on « Copyright and Related Rights » have all been imposed to recognize and protect the rights of authors and right holders globally and internationally. The advent of digital technologies such as the internet, mobile phones, e-book, social networks and others has created an opportunity for the public to make, reproduce and distribute copyrighted works easier, cheaper and faster. However, apart from above opportunities, digitization has also brought complicated issues such as plagiarism, piracy for copyright protection where ordinary users have started to copy and distribute without the authorization of authors. Moreover, it has been noted that the existing national copyright regime appears to be ineffective to solve the challenges. The paper aims to analyze the current situation of copyright protection in Kazakhstan by addressing a question of whether national legal framework can handle digital copyright violation. The novelty of this article is to introduce some legislative and technological measures such as the liability of information intermediaries, blockchain and watermarking, Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies to enhance copyright protection in the digital environment. To address the above issues, the author will mainly take some essential legal methods such as dialectical, system-structural, comparative-legal, and formal legal.