BananaIP Counsels Logo

Celebrating 20 Years of IP Excellence

Image of a court hammer has been used as the featured image, as the post is about a judgement

Copyright Contract Case: Phoolan Devi

There are some situations where contracts and Copyright Law overlap. You may have licensed your work to somebody else, transferring the copyrights you own over it, but there are still cases where you can claim authorship rights after the transfer. In this post, I shall be analyzing 2 cases in the Media & Entertainment industry where Section 57 of the Copyright Act can have an effect on Contracts for licensing of any literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work. One of the…
June 8, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 1410Views 0Like
Share

Read more

The image depicts the a tag with Copyright written on it

Fighting Pirates – Copyright v. Privacy

The conflict between copyright enforcement and privacy has been one of the stumbling blocks in fighting online piracy. While proof of direct infringement by internet users is an essential element for action against online pirates, privacy of user data is an essential mandate to live and transact on the world wide web. Owing to privacy responsibilities of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), copyright holders find it very difficult, or impossible, to acquire details of internet users involved in downloading, uploading and…
May 21, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 505Views 0Like
Share

Read more

Copyright x

Models Sue for “use of persona”

  Five US models sued FashionGlama.com and two individuals for the use of their photographs (use of persona) for escort services, and on pornographic websites. These models had allegedly signed 6-month contracts for modelling services, and were shocked to find their photographs on unwelcome websites. The suit alleges fraud, misrepresentation, unauthorized use of photographs (use of persona), breach of reputation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.   Though rarely pursued, such issues are very common in the Indian context as well. More…
April 22, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 576Views 0Like
Share

Read more

This image depicts the title creativity. This image is relevant because this post talks about the real role played by IP protection in creativity. Click on the image to view full post.

Role of Intellectual Property in Promoting Creativity

Does the Intellectual Property Regime play a role in promoting creativity? As stated by most governments, the objective of patent, copyright, design and other laws is to promote the progress of inventive activity and creativity. Are these laws actually achieving their stated objective? While most of us would like to believe that they are, no empirical study has been able to conclusively prove so far that IP laws actually promote creativity. The logical question that follows would be whether we…
April 9, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property, Patents, Trademarks 0Comment 565Views 1Like
Share

Read more

YOutube

Activision’s “Copyright strikes” spark outburst in Call of Duty gamers!

In a wide array of videos popular on YouTube, gameplay videos have quite a fan following. These videos involve gamers playing some of the most popular games, for viewers to watch. While copyrights over such games are reserved with the developers, they often face allegations of copyright infringement. YouTube, in its attempts to discourage such infringing videos, has introduced “copyright strikes” whereby the account flagged by the content owner for alleged infringement receives a copyright strike from YouTube restricting the…
April 6, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 1227Views 0Like
Share

Read more

This image depicts children singing the happy birthday song. This image is relevant becasue this post talks about the copyright over the tune of the song "Happy birthday to you". Click on the image to view full post.

Happy Birthday sue You; Happy Birthday sue You!

There’s no one who hasn’t awkwardly stood around their birthday cake while people sing "Happy Birthday to You". It’s the world’s most famous song, sung to millions each year. And this six-word set of lyrics with a simple melody is protected by copyright. In 1868, two Hill sisters from Kentucky composed a song called "Good Morning to All" (now known as the tune of "Happy Birthday"), which went like: Good morning to you, Good morning to you, Good morning, dear…
March 30, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property, IP Commercialization/Licensing, Media and Entertainment Law 0Comment 1406Views 0Like
Share

Read more

This image depicts the logo of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. This image is relevant because in this post, the U.S. talks about the credibility of India's Intellectual Property Enforcement. Click on the image to view full post.

OCR: Credibility of India’s Intellectual Property Enforcement in Question

United States Trade Representative (USTR) ordered an Out of Cycle Review (OCR) for India in October. While the USTR insists that the aim of this exercise is to provide constructive feedback to India in order to improve its IP protection and enforcement, many in India are not happy about this move. Not only has the government criticized this move, but also refused to participate in it arguing that the US laws are not applicable to India. Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s Commerce…
March 30, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law, Patents 0Comment 577Views 0Like
Share

Read more

Twitter

Can you sue if your tweet gets copied?

  Here is the next post in the series of Student Blog Contest.  The Internet is often considered the Wild West of laws; People believe that laws that exist offline do not apply online, or there exist different rules of behaviour. So when you tap out a tweet and hit send, putting it in public domain, can you sue if it gets copied? Short answer: No. Long answer? It’s complicated. Copyrighting a tweet is extremely hard, for various reasons. Reporting on…
March 30, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 4742Views 0Like
Share

Read more

cede o x

Digital Rights Management : An Analysis

  Laws alone cannot eliminate copyright infringements. For copyright law to take its course, there have to be effective detection of infringements and identification of infringers. Furthermore, as with any property rights, owners of copyrighted content have to take certain measures to protect their copyrights before expecting law enforcement to aid them. Digital Rights Managements and ETMs are such measures a copyright owner is expected to take in order to protect his copyrights in the digital world. The term Digital Rights…
March 25, 2015 Copyrights 0Comment 1748Views 0Like
Share

Read more

Music Copyright

“Blurred Lines” for American Music Industry after Copyright Controversy

On March 10, 2015, a panel of eight jurors of a California Federal Court found the artists Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams guilty of copyright infringement in a plagiarism suit filed by the heirs of artist Marvin Gaye, alleging that the 2013 hit “Blurred Lines” by Thicke and Williams was a rip off of Gaye’s 1977 song “Got To Give It Up”. ‘Blurred Lines’, written and performed by Robin Thicke, T I and Pharrell Williams, was released on March 26,…
March 19, 2015 Copyrights, Intellectual Property 0Comment 575Views 0Like
Share

Read more