Indian Copyright Statistics, Suresh Prabhu Releases IP Mascot – IP Nani, Famous Tamil Films Producer Vishal in Legal Trouble for Piracy, Website Blocking – A Paradigm Shift, Stan Lee in Legal Turmoil with Company he Co-founded, Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) forges an Agreement with DHX-Media, India Licensing Expo – Second Edition, 2018 and more, 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.
By Lawrence Lessig
INDIAN COPYRIGHT STATISTICS
There was an increase of 13.28% in the total number of copyright filings compared to the last week. A total of 324 applications were filed for copyright registration during the last week. While most of the applications were filed for literary works, only four applications were filed for registering Musical Works.
| Sr. No | Types of works | Number of Applications previous week (May 1-6) | Number of Applications last week (May 7-13) | Percentage change |
| 1 | Literary Works | 137 | 187 | 36.49% |
| 2 | Musical works | 12 | 4 | 66.70% |
| 3 | Artistic works | 90 | 65 | 27.77% |
| 4 | Cinematograph Films | 6 | 16 | 166.67% |
| 5 | Sound Recordings | 15 | 13 | 13.33% |
| 6 | Software | 31 | 40 | 29.03% |
| Total | 286 | 324 | 13.28% |
INDIAN COPYRIGHT NEWS
Suresh Prabhu Releases IP Mascot – IP Nani
The Minister of Commerce and Industry Suresh Prabhu launched an IP Mascot by the name IP Nani. The idea behind is to create vigilance regarding intellectual property rights in order to achieve the objective of creating a knowledge-based society. The minister released the IP Mascot during an Intellectual Property Right conference being held at New Delhi. This initiative falls in line with one of the major objectives of the National IPR Policy pertaining to “Outreach and Promotion” of IPR. Centre for IPR promotion and management under the DIPP collaborated with the European Union Intellectual property office for making video for the kids with IP Nani as the central character in it. These videos can be viewed on CIPAM official YouTube channel.
Famous Tamil Films Producer Vishal in Legal Trouble for Piracy
The actor producer Vishal is seen involved in legal trouble after being accused of grounding the charges against Lyca productions with respect to their involvement in piracy of Tamil films. The reports allege that Vishal in an unscrupulous manner refrained from taking any action against the perpetrators in lieu of some consideration. Lyca Productions and actor Vishal have firmly denied all the reports and accusation against them and have asserted to take stringent action against media houses for spreading news on baseless grounds. A more catastrophic event to be noted is the demand of around 40 other producers to remove actor Vishal as the head of Tamil Film Producers Council.
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT NEWS UPDATE
Website Blocking – A Paradigm Shift
A Munich Regional Court in Germany passed an order of blocking a copyright infringing website “KINOX.TO”. This judgment is a welcome development against all the pirate websites violating or contravening the copyright law in Germany. The court confirmed the liability of the website named “KINOX.TO” by applying the ratio determined in the case of “storerhaftung des access-provider” in 2016. The principle introduced in the “storerhaftung” case was with respect to conferring liability on the access providers which may not be the preparatory or direct infringer of the website but nonetheless they shall be held liable for willful and casual breach of duty. The respondent in the present case was streaming the movie of the applicant named “Fack Ju Göhte 3” on its website which was still running in the cinemas. The decision was in the favour of the plaintiff, restraining the respondent from providing access to the movie to its customer. In addition to this, a penalty of €250,000.00 was imposed on the respondent. A more pertinent fact is that this judgment comes after the recent amendments that were incorporated in the German Telemedia Act in 2017 limiting the liability of access providers to a certain extent. The present judgment becomes a seminal piece in the sense that it is the first time in the history of Germany that any legal order has been passed for blocking a website in the country.
Stan Lee in Legal Turmoil with Company he Co-founded
Stan Lee commenced legal proceedings against POW! Entertainment alleging that they used his name and identity fraudulently. Stan Lee alleges that the CEO of POW! Entertainment along with his other business executives deceptively got his signature over an agreement which transferred exclusive rights to use his name, identity and image to the company. In addition to the above claims, Lee also holds the company responsible for controlling his social media account and impersonating him. Stan Lee represented by Adam Grant claimed injunction with respect to holding the agreement signed by him as invalid and damages upto $1 billion. However, POW! Entertainment have denied all the accusations.
MERCHANDISING AND LICENSING NEWS
Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) forges an Agreement with DHX-Media
Sony Music Entertainment, Japan and DHX –Media inks a global partnership whereby the former will indirectly purchase 49% of DHX Media’s 80% interest in Peanuts for C$237 million (US$185 million) in cash. Peanuts is behind the creation of Snoopy and Charlie Brown. DHX-Media is a well-known children’s content and brand company majorly known for Peanuts, Teletubbies, Shortcake and Degrassi franchise. The two giants also extended their licensing and syndication agreement with respect to the consumer products division of Sony Creative Products Incorporation. Sony aims to use the characters build by Peanuts as a catalyst to further grow and push their business considering the popularity of these characters in Japan.
India Licensing Expo – Second Edition, 2018
The second edition of India Licensing Expo will take place from August 23-24 at Bombay Convention and Exhibition Centre, Mumbai. The present expo is seen as one of the most seminal brand licensing show which is organized with an aim to portray India as potential market globally. The event expects a footfall of more than 100 global and domestic brands. The show is able to gather a wide range of intellectual properties including characters, celebrities, corporates, sports and arts with an aim to facilitate and foster licensing professionals for the purpose of networking and establishing a robust licensing program for retailers.
COPYRIGHT TIP
Photograph of a celebrity has two associated rights, copyright and publicity right. Copyright in the photograph is generally owned by the photographer whereas the publicity rights are vested in the person portrayed in the photograph. Publicity rights recognize the commercial interest of the person portrayed in the photograph and will grant him the right to decide the manner in which his photograph can be commercially utilized.
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].
