COPYRIGHTS According to The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a Copyright is a legal term describing rights given to creators

for their literary and artistic works.1 It further says that the works covered by copyrights are literary works such as novels, poems, plays, reference works, newspapers and computer programs; databases; films, musical compositions, and choreography; artistic works such as paintings, drawings, photographs and sculpture; architecture; and advertisements, maps and technical drawings.2 o Copyright law is a branch of that part of the law, which deals with the rights of intellectual creators. o Copyright law deals with particular forms of creativity, concerned primarily with mass communication. o Copyright law, however, protects only the form of expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves. So what copyrights actually protects is creative works which can be clothing patterns, labels and fabrics in a material form which is the original work of the author and place of publication. Copyright confers this right to the author by giving him the right to reproduction and copying, adaptation, distribution and communication of his original work for 70 years after the death of the author or 50 years after the recording is done (UK and Europe). Copyright literally means right to copy.3 According to copyright law mere ideas are not protected, but the ways in which it is expressed are protected. According to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988: 1) Copyright and copyright works (1)Copyright is a property right, which subsists in accordance with this Part in the following descriptions of work (a) original literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works, (b) sound recordings, films or broadcasts, and

http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/copyright.html http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/copyright.html 3 http://www.worldwideocr.com/Copyright_Fashion_designs.asp

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(c) the typographical arrangement of published editions (2)In this Part copyright work means a work of any of those descriptions in which copyright subsists. (3)Copyright does not subsist in a work unless the requirements of this Part with respect to qualification for copyright protection are met (see section 153 and the provisions referred to there).4 CRITERIA FOR PROTECTION OF COPYRIGHT Under the Indian law one or more of the following conditions should be satisfied by the work under consideration to qualify for copyright protection: (a) It should be original; (b) It should be literary, dramatic musical work or cinematograph film or sound recording; (c) In case it is not covered by (a) or (b) above, it should be a work of an organisation declared by Central Government as an International Organisation under section 41 or, one covered under section 40 if it is a foreign work; (d) In case of design, it should not be registered under Design Act, 1911; (e) It should be a work, which is covered by the act as regards protection of copyright. OBJECT OF COPYRIGHT LAW The foundation of Copyright law is that, the law does not permit one to appropriate to him, what has been produced by the 1) Labour, 2) Skill and 3) Capital of another. The object of this law is to protect the author of a work from a 1) unlawful reproduction or 2) exploitation of his work by other. The law also prevents others from exercising any other form of right attached to copyright for example right of making a dramatic version, cinematograph version, translation, adaptation or abridgement. If an author has written a book named Oliver then a filmmaker is not allowed to make a film with the same story as this right is only with the writer and the filmmaker shall procure right before remaking the book into a movie from the original author. It is interesting to note that the exploitation of a work is actually done by entrepreneurs like publishers, film producers, or sound recording producers to whom
A. Christie & S. Gare, Blackstones Statutes on Intellectual Property (10th Edition, Oxford University Press, New York 2010)
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the owner of the copyright assigns or licences the particular rights. In such a case if there is no legal protection for the copyright for a particular period then no entrepreneur will undertake publication of books or production of sound recordings or films. WHAT IS ORIGINAL? Originality is defined as the ability of thinking independently and creatively. The question as to what is original was answered in the case of University of London Press Ltd. V. University Tutorials Press (1916) 2 Ch. 601. Peterson J said: The word original does not in this connection mean that the work must be the expression of original or inventive thought. Copyright Acts are not concerned with the originality of ideas but with the expression of thought, and, in the case of literary work, with the expression of thought in print or writing. The originality which is required relates to the expression of the thought. Though there can be no copyright in the reproduction of the judgment of a Court, the situation is otherwise when some notes are added to it and paragraphs are made in the process of reporting. In Eastern Book Co. v. Navin J. Desai and Others 2001 PTC (21) 243 (Del.) it was held that in case law reports the copyright subsists in head notes, editorial notes etc. Recently, a single judge bench of Kerala High Court had, in Infoseek Solutions and Another v. Kerala Law Times and Others 2007 (34) PTC 231 (Ker.), held that the copyright of the reporter extended to a report of the judgment which may include, besides head-notes the editorial notes, the entire text of the judgment. It was held to be a literary work under Section 13(1)(a) of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 In Eastern Book Co. & others v. D. B. Modak and another, where the appellants were bringing out reports of the apex court entitled Supreme Court Cases and the defendants had verbatim copied the same for their CDROM The Laws, the apex court observed that so far as the reporting of a judgment was concerned there could be no copyright in it. However, the Court held the defendant guilty of infringement of the appellants copyright because the latter had made new paragraphs and added their own notes to the judgments before reporting which, in the opinion of the Court, had induced the element of originality to the reports published by the appellants.

EXAMINATION PAPERS ARE ORIGINAL LITERARY WORKS The High Court of Allahabad in 1967 made an observation similar to that in the University of London Press Ltd. v. University Tutorials Press, when it held that the examination papers were original and literary work for the purposes of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957. W. Broome J of Allahabad High Court made these remarks in Agarwala Publishing House, Khurja v. Board of High School and Intermediate Education. He said: The words literary works in Section 13 are not confined to works of literature in the commonly understood sense but include all work expressed in writing whether they have any literary merit or not. The word original in Section 13 does not imply any originality of ideas but merely means that the work in question should not be copied from some other work and should originate in the author, being the product of his labour and skill. Thus question papers are original literary works within the meaning of Section 13and copyright can be claimed in respect of them. COMMONPLACE INFORMATION NOT COPYRIGHTABLE There is no copyright in a work that is taken out of commonplace information. In Cramp v. Smythson, the plaintiffs claimed that the information they had published in their Lite Blue Diary for 1933 had been copied by the defendants in their diary Survey Lightweight Diary 1942. The House of Lord rejected their claim and said : but the bundle of information furnished in the respondents diary is commonplace information which is ordinarily useful (and) iscommonly found prefixed to diaries, and, looking through the respondents collection of tables, I have difficulty in seeing hoe such tables in the combination in which they appear in the respondents 1933 diary, can reasonably claim to be original work. NO COPYRIGHT IN A WORD In Exxon Corporation v. Exxon Insurance Consultants, the Court of Appeal declined to recognise plaintiffs copyright in the word Exxon which the court felt was simply an artificial combination of four letters of alphabet which serves a purpose only when it is used in juxtaposition with other English words, to identify one or other of the companies in the plaintiff group

NO COPYRIGHT IF MATTER NOT IN A SCRIPT FORM In Green v. Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, where the plaintiff and defendant broadcast similar shows with the similar title opportunity knocks, the House of Lords held that no copyright had been infringed because the plaintiff could not prove that any part of the show was reduced to a written text which could properly be called a script. In Wiseman v. George Wiedenfeld &Nicolson, where a man had helped an author in converting the latters novel into a play, the Court turned down the mans claim for joint authorship because the Court found the he virtually took no part in writing any single line of the dialogue. NO COPYRIGHT IN A FOLK SONG In Roberton v. Lewis, it was held that nobody could claim a copyright in the tune of a folk song. Cross J distinguished it from the decision in Walter v. Lane and said that the law under Copyright Act, 1842 which was applied to that case did not provide that in order to be entitled to copyright a work must be original whereas the Act of 1911 and Act of 1956 (in U.K.) did require that the work be original in order to be copyrightable. He said: There (i.e. in Walter v. Lane) the short hand writers took down the words of speeches from the lips of a speaker who had not previously reduced his words into writing. In this case (i.e. Roberton v. Lewis) no one knows who the author of the tune was but in the long period of time which must have elapsed since it first came into existence it must have been sung or piped on innumerable occasions, and many of those who sung or piped it may have written down the notes either to aid their own memories or to enable them to teach it to others. 2) Author of a work means the person who has actually created that work. This means if he fixes any creative expression in a tangible medium, and this expression has not been copied from any existing work, then he has created a set of right in that expression and this right is called copyright. This copyright will give the author a material right over his creative expression and through this right he can control the ways in which his work can be used.

AUTHOR AND OWNERSHIP OF COPYRIGHT Statutory Provisions Section 2(d) and 17 of the Act. 2. Interpretation. - In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires: (d) "author means: (i) in relation to a literary or dramatic work, the author of the work; (ii) in relation to a musical work, the composer; (iii) in relation to an artistic work other than a photograph, the artist; (iv) in relation to a photograph, the person taking the photograph; (v) in relation to a cinematograph or sound recording the producer; and (vi) in relation to [any literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work which is computergenerated, the person who causes the work to be created] 17. First owner of copyright Subject to the provisions of this Act, the author of a work shall be the first owner of the copyright therein provided that(a) in the case of a literary, dramatic or artistic work made by the author in the course of his employment by the proprietor of a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical under a contract of service or apprenticeship, for the purpose of publication in a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, the said proprietor shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright in the work in so far as the copyright relates to the publication of the work in any newspaper, magazine or similar periodical, or to the reproduction of the work for the purpose of its being so published, but in all other respects the author shall be the first owner of the copyright in the work; (b) subject to the provisions of clause (a), in the case of a photograph taken, or a painting or portrait drawn, or an engraving or a cinematograph film made, for valuable consideration at the instance of any person, such person shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright therein; (c) in the case of a work made in the course of the author s employment under a contract of service or apprenticeship, to which clause (a) or clause (b) does not apply,

the employer shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright therein; [(cc) in the case of any address or speech delivered in public, the person who has delivered such address or speech or if such person has delivered such address or speech on behalf of any other person, such other person shall be the first owner of the copyright therein notwithstanding that the person who delivers such address or speech, or, as the case may be, the person on whose behalf such address or speech is delivered, is employed by any other person who arranges such address or speech or on whose behalf or premises such address or speech is delivered;] (d) in the case of a Government work, Government shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright therein; [(dd) in the case of a work made or first published by or under the direction or control of any public undertaking, such public undertaking shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of the copyright therein. Explanation.- For the purposes of this clause and section 28A, "public undertaking" means(i) an undertaking owned or controlled by Government; or (ii) a Government company as defined in section 617 of the Companies Act, 1956; or (iii) a body corporate established by or under any Central, Provincial or State Act;] (f) in the case of a work to which the provisions of section 41 apply, the international organisation concerned shall be the first owner of the copyright therein. NO COPYRIGHT IN WORK DONE DURING COURSE OF EMPLOYMENT In A & M records Ltd. v. Video Collection International Ltd., Graham Pullen, an agent of Inside Edge the service company of well known skaters Torvill and Dean who wanted two tunes recorded for use with their ice dance routines employed a

conductor Mr Ross to produce suitable renderings of two tunes, and Ross in turn employed a freelance arranger, Cyril Payne, to assist him. The British Broadcasting Corporation relayed and recorded one of Torvill and Deans performances where these two tunes were used, and licenced the defendants to sell videos of it. In a dispute on who owned the copyright the Court decided in favour of the Inside Edge because Mr Ross had been employed for the purpose by it and hence, he could not be held as owner of the copyright since he was not author of the sound recording made for the Inside Edge. There are certain instances where the employee can claim copyright in a work during the course of employment viz works other than one related to the nature of employment shall vest in the employee rather than the employer. Compare the case of Wiseman v. George Wiedenfeld & Nicolson with Najma Heptulla v. M/s. Orient Longman Ltd. and others. 3) Duration of a copyright is the time period for which the copyright subsists on the owner. It starts as soon as the above mentioned literary works are fixed into a tangible medium e.g. for a poet the copyright over that poem will start as soon as he has written down that poem in a tangible medium i.e. a piece of paper and not when he has actually registered or published his poem. A copyright registration is

necessary so that it can identify the creator of that work in case there is some conflict of interest in that subject matter, and further guarantees the right to the rightful owner. But even if someone copies the work of that poet before the poem has been registered the poet still has right to claim for his copyright. The only hindrance in case of claiming the ownership of an unregistered copyright is that the owner has to prove that the infringer had the access to the original work of the author or there was a scope that the work could have been accessible to the infringer. o In UK for literary, dramatic, musical, films, or artistic works a copyright expires at the end of the period of 70 years from end of the calendar year in which the author dies. If the work is computer generated then it is 50 years.

For sound recordings and broadcasts it is for the period of 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the recording or broadcast was done. o In USA the copyright in a work is for a period of 70 years after the death of the author. o In India 60 years after the death of the author. o In case of joint authorship 60 years after the death of last author o For orphan works 60 years after the death if the identity is disclosed else 60 years from publication.