Criminal Copyright: How Far Is It Criminal?

Criminal Copyright: How Far Is It Criminal?

The idea of criminal copyright as an orientation for academic quest in order to calibrate the efficacy of criminal provisions under the Copyright Law seems chimerical, not because there are little or no avenues to deliberate upon the theme logically but because of little intellectual investment for a systematic study and analysis of the more profound meaning and rationale forming a justificatory framework to convincingly comment upon the evolving status of the degree of potency of criminal recourses to issues of copyright infringement in the global IPR regime. It is unfortunate but true that copyright experts and enthusiasts seldom discuss and deliberate upon the nuances of the effects of criminalized approach to the infringement of copyright and other related rights in the bigger canvas of balance between owners' versus users' rights. There has been a global tendency to criminalize copyright infringement, but there have been a few debates and discussions on whether there are enough justifications to do so. This paper attempts to critically analyse the jurisprudential validity of criminalizing acts of copyright infringement, emphasizing the historical reasons for the emergence of global criminal copyright jurisprudence. Moreover, the researcher intends to explore whether the application of the canons of criminal jurisprudence is principled enough in cases of copyright infringement.