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Statutory License for Cover Versions under the Copyright (Amendment) Act

In our post last week, we looked at statutory licensing for broadcast organizations specified under Section 31D of the Indian Copyright Act. As mentioned earlier, the objective of non-voluntary licensing is to overcome the difficulty of locating the original owner of the copyrighted work in order to obtain a license and to avoid the creation of monopoly of copyright owners. The Copyright Act similarly contains provisions for statutory licensing for cover versions under Section 31C. While Section 31D which talks…
November 23, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 1808Views 0Like
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The Diary of Anne Frank or Otto Frank?

  “I wish to go on living even after my death” -Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl This was just one of the famous lines that Anne Frank wrote in her diary - ‘Kitty’, which it was fondly referred to as by Anne when she penned her thoughts into it. Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl or more famously known as the Diary of Anne Frank was a journal or a diary of a young Jewish girl…
November 23, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 663Views 0Like
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Thou can copy, oh Google. Tis legal!

The latest IP related news pertains to Google's digital copying of entire books as part of its Google Books service from Google Inc. The US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit recently confirmed the decision of the District Court that the scanning activities of Google within its Library Project are to be considered a fair use of copyright works. The Plaintiff-Appellants, who are the authors of published books under copyright, appealed from the judgment of the United States District…
November 23, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property, IP Commercialization/Licensing 0Comment 562Views 0Like
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Machinima – Copyright and Related Issues – Part II

In our post last week, we discussed about the art of machinima, i.e. the use of visuals from a video game to create a cinematographic film. As machinima is a derivative work, using the characters and the environment from the game without the authorization of the game developers would usually constitute an act of infringement. However, many of the creators of machinima, or machinimators, rely on the fair use provisions in the event that a copyright infringement claim is brought…
November 23, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 730Views 0Like
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Technological Protection Measures

  The Copyright Act, 1957 went through a major change in 2012. The amendment harmonised the copyright law with the “Internet Treaties”- the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT), making it capable of facing challenges posed by digital technologies. The Copyright Act, 2012 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Act’) added new Sections, 65A and 65B, for protection against dodging of technological measures and protection of rights management information respectively. The provision under Section 65A sets out…
November 17, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 2164Views 0Like
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Indian Copyright Law and Fair dealing

The concept of fair dealing is statutorily entrenched in Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957. What fair dealing does is that it permits certain acts with respect to copyrighted works, which otherwise would have constituted as infringement. The concept of fair dealing found in the UK copyright law as well as the Indian copyright law, is much more restrictive that its US counterpart, fair use. While the Indian law provides a specific list of fair dealing acts and purposes,…
November 16, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 1204Views 0Like
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Statutory Licensing for Broadcasting Organisations

  The objective of non–voluntary licensing is two-fold. First, to overcome the difficulty of locating the correct owner of the copyrighted work and getting an individual license from him and second is to avoid the creation of monopoly of copyright owners. The result the state looks at achieving from this provision is ensuring public dissemination and authors' compensation and avoiding market monopoly. The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 has incorporated a new section into Chapter VI of the Copyright Act, which…
November 16, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law 0Comment 602Views 0Like
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Machinima – Copyright and Related Issues – Part I

In this post we shall be discussing about ‘machinima’, a form of new age cinema. For those of you who are not aware of what machinima is, it is derived from two words, ‘machine’ and ‘cinema’, and as the combination suggests, it refers to the practice of using video games to create original cinematographic films. Machinima films use the virtual environments and the characters within a game to tell stories. Though a machinima appears to be just like any other…
November 16, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 620Views 0Like
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Social Media and Intellectual Property (IP): Part I- Protection and Ownership

Social Media comes with a bundle of tools that differentiate it from traditional print and electronic media. Among others, two unique elements of Social Media are: Tools for sharing and dissemination of content and information across the world; and tools to communicate and exchange information. These two elements make Social Media a much more powerful weapon than traditional media. Access to most social media platforms requires internet, of which there is no dearth in today's context. It is estimated that…
November 11, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law, Patents, Social Media Law, Trade Secrets 0Comment 2417Views 0Like
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The featured image shows a movie reel. The post deals about the online leak of udta punjab. To know more, please click here.

Hollywood Copyrights and Bollywood Copy(right!?)

‘Plagiarism’ is not a foreign word to the entertainment industry. It is not uncommon in Bollywood to dress ‘plagiarism’ as ‘inspiration’. Studies show that nearly eight out of every ten Bollywood movies produced is “inspired” by one or more Hollywood films. Bollywood has time and again faced criticism for its “blatant copying” of Hollywood storylines and for having taken undue advantage of the unfamiliarity of the Indian audiences with respect to international films. Although very few western studios attempted to…
November 9, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 1526Views 0Like
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