Indian Copyright Statistics, Draft Copyright Manual Published, FIR Registered Against Park Hyatt, Hyderabad For copyright Infringement, Meme Creator Sues Info Wars, Disney vs Netflix: Global streaming wars and more are presented by the Copyright and Entertainment Law Attorneys and experts of BananaIP Counsels, India’s Premier New Age IP Firm
COPYRIGHT QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device” – Lawrence Lessig
INDIAN COPYRIGHT STATISTICS
There was an increase of 34.76% in the total number of copyright filings compared to the last week. A total of 270 applications were filed for copyright registration during the last week. While most of the applications were filed for literary works and only 1 application was filed for registering Cinematographic Film.
| Sr. No | Types of work | Number of Applications previous week | Number of Applications this week | Percentage change |
| 1 | Literary Works | 124 | 179 | 36.3% |
| 2 | Musical works | 22 | 27 | 20.4% |
| 3 | Artistic works | 18 | 34 | 61.53% |
| 4 | Cinematograph Films | 4 | 1 | 120% |
| 5 | Sound Recordings | 2 | 3 | 40% |
| 6 | Software | 21 | 26 | 21.27% |
| Total | 191 | 270 | 34.76%% |
INDIAN COPYRIGHTS AND ENTERTAINMENT LAW UPDATES
DRAFT COPYRIGHT MANUAL PUBLISHED
The Copyright office with an intention of bringing uniformity and consistency in its procedures relating to the examination of copyright applications has published the draft Copyright manual on registration of literary works, artistic works, cinematographic films, musical compositions and sound recordings. The draft manual is now open for public comments and any interested stakeholder may provide its comments by 19th March 2018.
FIR REGISTERED AGAINST PARK HYATT, HYDERABAD FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
The Banjara Hills police registered a case against the Park Hyatt Hotel, Hyderabad for allegedly playing audio tracks and videos of Bollywood films without obtaining adequate permissions. The complaint was filed by Mumbai based Novex Communications, which holds rights for Zee Music. In its complaint, Novex alleges that the Hotel played the sound recordings without taking any authorization or licenses from Novex. “The complainant alleged that the management played songs or videos from movies like Bar Bar Dekho, the rights of which were assigned to Novex,” stated Banjara Hill Police in their statement.
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT AND ENTERTAINMENT LAW UPDATES
MEME CREATOR SUES INFO WARS
Matt Furie, the creator of the character and meme, Pepe the Frog , filed a copyright infringement suit against the US-based website Info Wars alleging that the site is using his character without permission to spread racist memes. Furie is seeking an injunction restraining Info Wars from selling posters with the character and seeks punitive damages against such infringing use. Furie claims that he created the character as a “peaceful frog dude” but, in the run-up to the 2016 election, right-wing websites began to use the character in racist and other offensive memes.
LICENSING AND MERCHANDISING UPDATES
DISNEY VS NETFLIX: GLOBAL STREAMING WARS
Robert Iger, CEO of Disney, as per certain sources has stated that Disney shall launch its own streaming service in 2019. Disney has started withdrawing content from Netflix for its own forthcoming streaming service. Netflix, concluded 2017 with 117.5 million subscribers, 62 million of them non-US subscribers. In India, Netflix has almost half a million subscribers. Although the number is expected to grow it faces a stiff challenge from the rival streaming service Amazon Prime.
COPYRIGHT TIP OF THE WEEK
Getting a license for playing a sound recording is easy and straightforward. The event organizer may get a license for using the songs from the copyright owner, copyright societies or collective management agencies in one shot.
Author: BIP’s Copyright and Entertainment Law Attorneys
Senior Partner, the entertainment law attorneys at BIP are among the well-known lawyers in the field. They work with clients such as Yash Raj Films, Dharma Productions, Ananda Audio, Anushka Sharma, Sushant Singh, and Arka Media (Producer of Bahu Bali). BIP’s entertainment law team helps clients protect, manage and effectively license and merchandise their creative works such as films, music, brands and other content, to maximize financial returns.
The weekly copyright and entertainment law news initiative is a part of their pro bono work, and is aimed at spreading entertainment law awareness. You are free to share the news with appropriate attribution and backlink to the source.
If you have any questions, you may write to BIP’s Copyright and Entertainment Law Attorneys – [email protected].
