Sound Board

Our thoughts and views on the practice of Intellectual Property in India and around the world.

Most commercial establishments often play popular music as a form of entertainment for their patrons. Step into any mall, hotel, pub, restaurant, or gym, and there is a high chance that they will be playing a song that you know. Since music falls under the scope of copyright as intellectual property, any commercial establishment playing music must obtain a license from the appropriate rights holder in order to play such music.

The Indian Copyright Act provides who the Author and Owner are, with respect to any work. It uncomplicates matters by simply putting that the Author of the work is the First Owner of the Copyright (subject to provisions of course). While in most cases, a clear determination is possible, there are circumstances when the logic has to be reconsidered; example when a work (in which copyright exists) is prepared at the instance of another person. There appears to be a very thin hazy line between…

The paranoia around the COVID-19 continues to stretch the air, people, citizens and the government continue to strive to put their best foot forward to ensure maximum safety and avoid anarchy. With this, we would like to inform you that, the Indian government have been meticulous in their work and have always ensured the best for its citizens, with this the Indian Patent Office, the Indian Trade Marks Registry and the Indian Copyright Office have released their official notices dated,…

This order by the Hon’ble Bombay High Court, delivered on 28th September, 2019 pertaining to subtitles in movies, is one such droplet that will potentially open the floodgate for the entertainment and media law sector in India.

the Engineering Export Promotion Council Chairman, Ravi Seghal, emphasized on the need for the adoption of Intellectual Property rights to protect  innovative ideas and strategies of Micro, Small and Medium enterprises (MSME’s) in a highly competitive global economy.

Copyright is a unique animal among the various types of intellectual property. Usually, copyright vests in a work as soon as it is created, and registration of a copyright is not mandatory to obtain some form of legal protection. It is this aspect of copyright that gives rise to various types of copyleft and permissive licenses of copyrighted works, because it gives the creator of a work rights over their work immediately upon creation.

The word “copyright” is a legal term which has become entrenched in everyday conversation because of its ubiquity and widespread use. Copyleft, on the other hand, is a more obscure term which refers to a particular type of copyright license.

On July 8, 2019 The Delhi High Court decided that a copyright infringement occurs when there is no ‘Originality’ under Section 13(3)(a) and Section 2(d) of the Copyright Act, 1957. To decide this, reliance was placed on two other cases- R.G. Anand v. M/s Deluxe Films and Ors., (1978) 4 SCC 118 and MRF limited v. Metro Tyres Limited, CS (COMM) 753/2017.

Visual recording means “means the recording in any medium, by any method including the storing of it by any electronic means, of moving images or of the representations thereof, from which they can be perceived, reproduced or communicated by any method as defined under section 2(xxa) of the Act.

In a recent judgement, the Bombay High Court had clarified an issue of copyright law that is likely to have an immediate impact on the rise in popularity of music streaming services.