In the UK, a form of protection and royalties are guaranteed in perpetuity by an exceptional clause in 1988 copyright legislation, but in much of the world copyright has now expired.
Through these initiatives, World Book and Copyright Day is more relevant in the UK than ever before, with new technology and literacy issues now impacting at the heart of the democratic process.
One early example is the World Intellectual Property Organisation's copyright treaty of 1996, which strengthened international copyright rules.
For the moment, the site seems to be merely focused on getting in contact with users who lost their data in the copyright-driven Megaupload raid that rocked the filesharing world earlier this month.
FORBES: EFF Launches MegaRetrieval To Help Users Save Their Megaupload Data
He says the biggest barriers to building the kind of virtual world Chuah envisions are legal, involving things like copyright, and can be resolved.
Google has reached a settlement with groups representing authors and publishers, who had sued the world's biggest internet company in 2005 for copyright infringement.
Authorities around the world have been cracking down on file-sharing and copyright infringement, and The Pirate Bay is one of the biggest targets, especially since the Federal Raid on Megaupload.com.
As Russia seeks to join the World Trade Organization, it may be forced to step in line with international copyright licensing and stamp out sites like AllofMP3.
The Director-General also stressed the absolute need to respect the provisions of the 1996 Copyright Treaty (WCT) and Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) adopted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) last year declared the loophole in breach of international copyright law.
Thanks to this kind of arm-twisting, copyright treaties that are adopted in the US and Europe are eventually foisted on the rest of the world.
In a fast-moving world where technological innovation has brought new developments in e-books and online access to contents of books, UNESCO Secretary General Irina Bokova has maintained that in celebrating World Book Day, it is important to remember that there can be no book development without consideration for copyright, especially when digitization further exposes books to risks of illicit use.
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