Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) are the rights that protect creations of the mind, such as inventions, artistic works, and symbols. IPRs play a crucial role in promoting innovation, creativity, and economic growth. Infact, Intellectual Property (IP) is an umbrella term that includes copyright, patents, trademarks, and more. Modern copyright law developed in India gradually, in a span of 150 years. The first batch of India with copyright law happened in 1847 through an enactment during the East India Company’s regime. The Act passed by Governor-General of India affirmed the applicability of English copyright law to India. According to the 1847 enactment, the term of copyright was for the lifetime of the author plus seven years post-mortem and could not exceed fortytwo years on the whole. Though the author refused publication after his death, the Government had the authority to give licence for its publication. The act of infringement was inclusive of unauthorized printing of a copyright work for “sale, hire or export”, or “for selling, publishing or exposing to sale or hire”. The suit for infringement under this act could be instituted in the “highest local court exercising original civil jurisdiction”. The Act also specifically provided that under a contract of service copyright in “any encyclopedia, review, magazine, periodical work or work published in a series of books or parts” shall vest in the “proprietor, projector, publisher or conductor”. It was deemed that the copies of the infringed work were the property of the proprietor of the copyrighted work for all purposes. Most importantly, the copyright in a work was not automatic unlike today. Registration of the work with Home Office was mandatory for the protection of rights under this enactment. However, the Act specifically reserved the subsistence of copyright in the author, and his right to sue for its infringement to the extent available in any other law except 1847 Act. At the time of its introduction in India, copyright law had already been in the developing stage in Britain for over a century and the provisions of the 1847 enactment were reflected in the later enactments. The Copyright Act 1911, while repealing earlier statues on the subject, was also made applicable to all the British colonies including India. In 1914, the Indian Copyright Act was enacted which modified some of the provisions of Copyright Act 1911 and added some new provisions to it to make it applicable in India. The Indian Copyright Act 1914 remained applicable in India until it was replaced by the Copyright Act 1957. COPYRIGHT LAW IN INDIA: In India, the Copyright Act, 1957 (as amended in 1999), the Rules made there under and the International Copyright Order, 1999 govern Copyright and neighbouring rights. This Act has been amended five times i.e 1983,1984,1992,1999 and most recently in 2012.The Act is divided into 15 chapters with 79 sections. Moreover, the Central Government, by virtue of section 78 is empowered to make rules by notification in the Official Gazette, for carrying out the purposes of this Act. Under the Act, a copyright office was established under the control of a registrar of copyright who was to act under the superintendence and direction of central government. The principal function of this office was to maintain a register of copyright containing the names or titles of work, the names and addresses of authors, etc. The registrar had certain powers like entertaining and disposing of applications for compulsory licenses and to inquire into complaints of importation of infringing copies. A Copyright Board had been set up under the Act and the proceedings before it are deemed to be judicial proceedings. The definition of copyright included the exclusive right to communicate works by radio diffusion; the cinematograph was given a separate copyright; the term of copyright protection was extended from 23 to 50 years which was again extended to 60 years in 1992; term of copyright for different categories of work was also specified. The right to produce a translation of a work was made coextensive with other rights arising out of copyright. Provisions relating to assignment of ownership and licensing of copyright including compulsory licensing in certain circumstances, rights of broadcasting organisations, international copyright, definition of infringement of copyright, exceptions to the exclusive rights conferred upon the author or acts which do not constitute infringement, special rights of authors, civil and criminal remedies against infringement and remedies against groundless threats or legal proceedings were also introduced.
“Intellectual Property Rights play a vital role in society, they help creators inventors and developers to drive our business, societies and economies. They support enterprises, create jobs and give us a guarantee of quality and safety when we buy goods and services. Unfortunately, many people still believe that IP rights have little to do with their day-to-day lives. The observatory stakeholders are therefore doing a huge amount of awareness to help people understand the value of IP in today’s society.”
The Indian Copyright Amendment Act 2012: The Amendment Act 2012 has extended the rights of the performer’s and broadcasting organisations, the major thrust of amendments was on eliminating unequal treatment meted out to lyricists and music composers of copyrighted works incorporated in cinematograph film owing to the contractual practice in Indian entertainment industry. Under industry practice, lyricists and music composers were assigning all rights in the work to the producer of the film for a one time-lump sum payment. This meant that lyricist and music composers had no further right to any royalty accruing from their work even if the work was being utilized in mediums other than the cinematograph film. A proviso was added to Section 17, which provided that clauses (b) and (c) of the section will have no impact on the right of the author of the work incorporated in the cinematograph film, this was done to give rights to the lyricist and music composers. One of the major points of this amendment was to ensure that users of copyrighted material users of copyrighted materials have affirmative access to protected materials and their fair use rights are duly protected and enforced. For meeting this requirement, the Amendment Act broadened the scope of statutory and compulsory licensing provisions and also empowered the broadcasting organisations to broadcast any prior published literary, musical work and sound recording by giving a prior notice to the copyright owner and paying royalty at the rates prescribed by the Copyright Board33. Further, amendments also recognised the need to ensure access to reading material for the differently abled people by way of introduction of Section 52(1)(zb), is broadly worded, and allows the conversion of any work in any accessible format by any person or organisation till such reproduction is for the benefit of persons with any disability and the converting organisation or person is working on a non-profit basis ensuring that such copies are not used for business. The Amendment Act has also tried to the Copyright Act in conformity with technological advances and concomitant international developments and so Section 65A and 65 B are added to promote digital rights management. The aim of these provisions is to protect the rights of the copyright owners in the digital domain. Further, to ensure that the digital advances are useful for the users and do not restrict access unreasonably and to protect the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in section 52(b) and 52(c) are included. These provisions protect ISPs from liability of copyright infringement in case of transient and incidental storage of the work for the purpose of providing access.
Present Status: Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) will become an important pillar in future growth story. By providing an impetus to local research and innovation, IPR could provide a boost to economic activity in all sectors of the economy. But equally importantly, a national IPR regime needs to balance the interests of foreign manufacturers and innovators with those of indigenous innovators. It further needs to ensure that the interests of the weakest and most deprived sections are not jeopardized. These conflicting pulls and pressures can be managed only through a stable and predictable IPR policy. The NITT draft document is a significant step in that direction. The draft policy does seek to balance the goals of economic growth and social justice, and makes important recommendations towards the same. Intellectual Property Rights play a vital role in society, they help creators inventors and developers to drive our business, societies and economies. They support enterprises, create jobs and give us a guarantee of quality and safety when we buy goods and services. Unfortunately, many people still believe that IP rights have little to do with their day-to-day lives. The observatory stakeholders are therefore doing a huge amount of awareness to help people understand the value of IP in today’s society. The Steps needed to be taken to enhance the potential of IPR are: (a) Universities need to increase their efforts to educate law students in what IP is? And why it matters? Universities need to do a better job in preparing their law graduates to be productive citizens of the innovative economy and that includes giving more attention to IP education. (b) Modest amount of training regarding IP rights and obligations. (c) Organization of workshops and sensitization programmes on IPR. (d) Facilitation of interactive seminars. (e) Laws and procedures shall be made more transparent and time bound. (f) Strong and effective laws with regard to IP rights, consistent with international obligations. (g) Strengthening of the enforcement and adjudicatory mechanism for combating IP violations and to promote awareness and respect for IP rights. (h) Public awareness about the benefits of intellectual property among all sections of society including legal fraternity. (i) Capacity development by strengthening and expanding human resources, institutions for training, research and skill building in IP. The government hasn’t been half hearted in its endeavor to provide us with better IP regulations.
Developing IPR Expertise In The Industry, Academics And Legal Fraternity: This progressive step by the govt. to bring efficacy regarding the awareness of the intellectual property regime is a welcome change. In brief, IPRs play Economic Role, Social Role, Legal Role and International Role.
(The authors write frequently for the opinion pages of “Kashmir Horizon”. The views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the author and aren’t necessarily in accord with the views of “Kashmir Horizon”)
Nazia Fayaz Azad
Dr . Bilal Ahmad
