Author: Manu Bajaj
Copyright Act, 1957
In India, the copyright law is the Copyright Act of 1957. It seeks to provide protection to works of art by giving the rights to the creators or owners (in case of movies). As of today, the official term of a copyright is 60 years from the beginning of the calendar year next following the year in which the author dies for literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. For other forms like photographs, sound records, films etc; it is 60 years following the year of first publication.
The Indian copyright law is known across the world for being a balanced law. Understanding the needs of a developing country, the law is decently widely worded in areas where a little leniency would benefit the masses at large. Examples of these include a more ambiguous wording around ‘fair dealing for private use’ and also softer rules for producing cover versions in the country and thus leading to a more vibrant music industry.
However, with the advent of software and internet all over the world, governments everywhere are re-evaluating their laws and definitions of fundamental words like infringement. World Intellectual Property Organizations (WIPO) has had a number of significant treaties signed at the global scale. Some of the prominent ones include WPPT and WCT. India, however, is not a signee to any of these and is thus not legally bound to change its law. But, to match changing times, the government introduced the Copyright Amendment Bill in 2010. Here are the highlights of the bill
Highlights and Impact of the Bill
- Movies: The copyright of a movie rests with the producer for 60 years. The bill seeks to make the director of the movie a joint holder of the copyright and the duration for him is set to be 70 years. The standing committee later suggested that this provision be dropped since there are no clear reasons for including the director and that the principal director is an ambiguous term
- Music for movies: Currently, all copyrights for all parts of a movie rests with the producer. Even the music composer does not retain the copyright since it belongs to the producer. The act seeks to change a particular portion of this. It says that when the music of a film is used media other than films or sound recordings, the royalties from them would rest with the music composers and not with the producer. This provision has received huge support from composers and huge opposition from producers.
- The Bill also provides for exclusion of copyright for special reproduction of the copyrighted work. The special reproduction includes Braille and audio books for the visually impaired. The standing committee recommends that this proposal should be extended to people with disabilities other than visually impaired as well.
- It gives authors a right to claim damages for infringement but only under the condition that it affects their reputation badly. Definition of affecting reputation is ambiguous and subjective thus the standing committee has also recommended that the provision be made more definite. Also, this right shall remain even after the term of the copyright has expired and can thus lead to pointless law suits.
- Moral right: The bill says that the author’s ‘Moral Right’ over the creation shall stay forever, even after the completion of the term of the copyright. More so, currently the Moral Right is applicable only to authors. The Bill seeks to extend this right to performers as well.
- Online storage: The bill states that existing laws would be valid over online communication channels as well. However, it also states that a person who stores a work while it is transmitted electronically does not infringe a copyright until the person knows that the work is infringing on a copyright. This, to remove the work he can ask for a court order.
- Parallel Import of Books: This is one of the most debated topics of the new Bill. The bill seeks to permit the import of legitimate copies of copyright works that have been sold once anywhere in the world. This would lead to opening up of the book market in India and thus enable Indian consumers to have access to a greater number of books at cheaper prices. This would thus not require foreign publishers to give licenses to Indian producers who would then produce cheaper and lower quality ‘Indian Editions’. The industry is vigorously opposing this decision as they say that there are Indian editions available for a huge variety of the books and that access to foreign books is not an issue. They say that foreign publishers would stop licencing books to Indian publishers for cheap ‘Indian Prints’ and would thus raise the prices of the books. The Standing committee has stood by the government on this stating that the cheap Indian editions are primarily limited to old editions of books and new book versions have very high prices.
In conclusion, the bill takes bold and brave steps towards making copyright more morally balanced and modern to suit the changing times. However, it would have to go farther than just complying to the WPPT and WCT standards and stress on implementation and enforcement in the changing times.
References:
Innovation and Intellectual Property 