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" HISTORICAL OVERVIEW AND AN   HISTORICAL OVERVIEW AND AN INTRODUCTION TO COPYRIGHT   By Muhammad Nouman Shams, Advocate and Legal Consultant, Lahore   INTRODUCTION   Copyright law secures for the creator of a creative effort the exclusive right to control who can make copies, or make works derived from the original work. There are a lot of subtleties and international variations but that's the gist of it. If you create something, and it fits the definition of a creative work, you get to control who can make copies of it and how they make copies, with some important exceptions.   You can also sell or license this right, or, if you do the work for somebody who hired you to do it, they buy this right in advance.   I. DEFINITION   i. A property right in an original work of authorship (such as a literary, musical, artistic, photographic, or file work) fixed in any tangible medium of expression, giving the holder the exclusive right to reproduce, adapt, distribute, perform, and display the work. (Black's Law Dictionary 7th edition)'   ii. Exclusive right of an author of printing and publishing his literary performance. The right extends to books, letters, lectures, dramatic production, musical compositions, unpublished works of art, engravings etc. right of distribution, exhibition and exploitation of cinematography film is copyright within the meaning of section 1(2) (b) of British Copyright Act, 1991 (PLD 1963 Dacca 108)   II. HISTORY   (i) Dating back almost to the beginning of civilization, in ancient time, most authors were primarily teachers, hence the emphasis was on moral rights. The word "Plagiarist" meaning one who copies the work of another and passes it of as his own, is derived from the Latin…