| COPYRIGHT (AMENDMENT) BILL GETS A GO AHEAD |
| The Bill most awaited by the Music and Film industry in the country, the Copyright (Amendment) Bill has finally got the approval of the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, 22nd of May 2012 and is all set to become law as soon as the President gives her assent and it is published in the Gazette of India. This Bill, which was first introduced in the year 2010, has been discussed time and again and has been continuously pushed for passing by the film and music fraternity. This Bill brings the Indian Copyright legislation closer to the international norms set by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). |
| Bringing about some sweeping changes in the existing legislation relating to copyrights, the Bill eases some difficulties in relation to the rights of the artists and adapts to some newer issues coming as a relief to the film & music industry of the country. |
| In this post, we discuss some of the highlights of this Bill. |
- The Bill makes it mandatory for broadcasters to pay royalty to the owners of the copyright each time their creation is broadcasted. In effect, this gives a copyright to the lyricist, artist or performer of the work, which was till now vested in the producer only. This comes as a respite to the many artists who did not get enough rights due to the vesting of all the rights in the producer itself.
- With the passing of this Amendment Bill, the Copyright Act, 1957 will be amended such that where the copyright in films currently rests with the producer for 60 years, the Bill vests the copyright in the Principal Director as well.
- In addition to this, the Bill makes special provisions for those whose work is used in films or sound recordings by giving them a right to royalties from such works, when used in media other than films or sound recordings which shall now rest with the creator of the work and can only be assigned to heirs, or copyright societies which act in their interests.
- The Bill extends the scope of Fair Dealing to all types of works except softwares. In effect, this now covers sound recordings and videos as well, whereas earlier only literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works were covered.
- The Bill makes provisions regarding statutory license for cover versions, prohibiting broadcasters from bringing out cover versions of any literary, dramatic or musical work for five years (earlier it was two years) from the first recording of the original creation and prescribes a number of conditions that have to be fulfilled to obtain the license. In simpler terms, a cover license is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song.
- The Bill introduces a new Section allowing a broadcasting organization to broadcast a published work through a statutory license. The Bill mandates that any broadcasting organization desirous of communicating to the public by way of a broadcast or by way of performance of a literary or musical work and sound recording which has already been published, may do so provided it gives a notice stating the duration and territorial coverage of the broadcast to the copyright owner; pays advance royalties to the copyright owner as fixed by the copyright board; announces the names of authors and principal performers with the broadcast; refrains from altering the work except for technical purposes of broadcasting or for shortening the work for broadcasting; and maintains records and accounts and allows the copyright owner to inspect them.
- Becoming disabled friendly, the Bill allows for the production of copyrighted works in special formats such as Braille for use by persons with disability, without infringing any copyright.
- In addition to the above, the clause which stated that only authors have control of copyright societies, as opposed to the ‘owners of the rights’ has been deleted. Further, with respect to Copyright Societies, it has been mandated that registration to a copyright society shall be granted for a period of five years and will be renewed thereafter. Also, the Bill mandates that all the existing Copyright Societies will have to register themselves again within a period of one year of the enactment of the Bill. Effectively, this means that all the present and existing copyright societies such as IPRS will have to again register themselves under the law. Emphasizing on the transparency in the operations of the Copyright Boards, the Bill also provides that the Central government will be allowed to revoke the registration of a copyright society if it does not comply with the provisions of the existing section 33A of the Copyrights Act which imposes stringent transparency conditions. This step has probably been taken learning lessons from the mis-happenings at some copyright societies in the past.
- The Bill introduces moral rights of a performer giving a performer a right to prevent the infringement of his works.
|
| The Bill makes several other amendments including change in the term of copyright in photographs to 60 years after the death of the photographer, extension of compulsory licensing regime to unpublished works and imposition of punitive actions. |
|
CP Comments: |
| The clearing of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2012 by the Lok Sabha in this session comes as a jubilant news for the artists of the country considering the plight of many other veteran artists in the past. The Bill has passed through many working stages before receiving the final nod. Earlier, the Government had already decided and dropped out the provision for ‘Parallel Imports’ from the Bill. The said provision legalized the parallel import of books and other copyrighted material into India and was part of the initial copyright amendment Bill. |
| All in all, while the passing of the Bill has brought much relief to composers, lyricists, scriptwriters and singers of the country, granting them many new and much awaited rights with respect to their works, the producers and music companies do not welcome the amendments for various reasons such as provisions relating to royalties and statutory licensing as it is expected to affect their businesses and profits in more than one ways. |
| Besides this, when viewed with respect to cover versions, the amendments in the law make it very difficult and the law tough to make covers. This is mainly because of certain issues like the requirement of the cover version to be in same medium as the original, only technical alterations shall be allowed in the cover version, etc. Many of these amendments will affect the cases where songs are covered without any permission. |
| As regards fair dealing like permitted use in education etc, though there has been a good amount of amendment in that area, however, more detailed guidelines with respect to fair dealing and what is not infringement are required to be formulated. |
| The Bill touches upon several issues and makes several amendments to the existing law on copyrights, but in some places ignores the need for the law to be liberalized which may result in too many copyright infringements. Nonetheless, the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 getting the approval of the Parliament is a milestone for the Film industry. |
