A Legal Dilemma: Balancing The Right To A Digital Software Backup And Adherence To Technological Measures Under The Egyptian Intellectual Property Law In Light of The Global Tendencies

Technological development in the field of the Internet has become a reality that we experience in our daily lives, and with the recent advancement of the digital software industry, new technologies have risen with it that have the ability to hack and overthrow protection, making it difficult to provide adequate protection to copyright holders on works that are published on the Internet. International agreements and national laws sought to solve this problem by adopting technological means to protect intellectual property rights, but the principles of intellectual property established, since the first international agreements stated that the third party have rights over the protected work, which is considered an exception to the exclusive right of the author over his work. This matter put some legislators, including the Egyptian legislator, in a very difficult position. As he is required to maintain balance between the rights of third party over works in a way that guarantees them a mechanism for obtaining their rights in accordance with the legal articles and international treaties that explicitly stipulate these exceptions. On the other hand, he must set deterrent limits to stop explicit violations that occur against works published on the Internet. We will attempt to highlight the legislative shortcomings on the national and international levels regarding the issue of exceptions to copyright from obtaining a personal copy, a “backup” copy of digital programs, and also the ability to protect copyrighted works on the Internet under technological measures without prejudice to the right of the third party. We crystallize the inability to create a balance between these two interests and then offer some appropriate solutions that may help guide you on the right path.