The National Archives Delivers a Lecture on the Intellectual Property Challenges and Confirms its Compliance with laws
The National Archives Delivers a Lecture on the Intellectual Property Challenges and Confirms its Compliance with laws
The National Archives organized a virtual lecture entitled “Intellectual Property Challenges of Acquisition and Usage”. It focused on the NA’s interest in applying intellectual property laws to the documentary heritage, which it keeps and makes available to beneficiaries as part of its mission, which is to “preserve the documentary heritage to provide decision makers and public with trusted information and to enhance civic spirit and national identity”.
Mr. Hamad Al Mutairi, Director of Archives Department, gave an introduction to the lecture, stating that intellectual property rights allow creative people to benefit from their work while respecting the rights. He also indicated the importance of delivering this lecture in conjunction with the Year of the 50th. The UAE was able to make major achievements in various fields, thanks to the prudent leadership’s vision, constant support, and interest in protecting intellectual property rights. In addition, he assured that technology, which is rapidly expanding and developing has a great impact on intellectual property and that the NA is concerned with applying the intellectual property laws to all its historical and technological acquisitions and others.
Furthermore, Al Mutairi emphasized that the NA makes sure of the materials acquisition grounds and their usage-related rights, in accordance with Federal Law No. (32) of 2006 on the copyright and the neighboring rights, given that the UAE has joined Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which requires to deal with copyrights according to the laws of the country of origin.
The lecture was delivered in English by Mr. Justin Codrai, Expert in photographs at the NA, and then it was consecutively interpreted by Mrs. Zeina Nassim Azar. The lecture started by discussing the documentary heritage, which the NA is concerned with its acquisition. That heritage consists of hard and soft copy documents: books, newspapers, maps, films and photographs, oral history, etc.
The lecture that was attended by a large number of audiences discussed the methods of providing decision makers, public and beneficiaries with accurate data legally and in accordance with the licenses terms and conditions.
To highlight the intellectual property challenges upon materials acquisition, photos were presented in the lecture as they are primary documents at the NA and the most widespread historical media in the UAE. The lecture also illustrated the most significant challenges in this field and focused on “copyright and use licenses”, which is an exclusive right granted to the author or creator of a work for a number of years such as the person who takes a photograph, records a video, composes a song, writes a research paper or a book.
The lecturer resorted to many real examples in the field of photography and presented the intellectual property challenges and the proper ways of providing public with materials and of preventing unauthorized copying. The lecture was concluded by revealing the reasons behind the importance of this issue to the NA.
The National Archives
The National Archives of the Ministry of Presidential Affairs was first established in 1968 upon the directives of the late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, with the aim of collecting documents and information relating to the history and heritage of the United Arab Emirates and the Gulf region. Forty years later, HH Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE President, issued Federal Law No. (7) of 2008 changing its name to the National Center for Documentation and Research (NCDR), and assigning it to organize the archives of the various UAE government entities. Finally, HH Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan issued Federal Law No. (1) of 2014, renaming it the National Archives.
