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Overview of Copyright Laws under Indian Context

Updated: May 6, 2020


Today in the rapid pace of technological, scientific and medical development and bunch of innovations which are ready to accelerate in its track, the field of Intellectual Property has accommodated itself in this pace by playing an effective and efficient role. From the past few decades there has been a rapid global economic and social development in which most importantly the central element of focus of growth is the Intellectual Property Rights. The field of Intellectual Property Rights is growing in a rapid pace to be the biggest and fastest growing field in the domain of law which thereby increases the demand of the Intellectual Property Professionals.

The earliest case of copyright dated back to Ireland, where there was a disagreement regarding the responsibility for Irish Composition Cathach. The Cathach is the most established surviving Irish original copy of Psalter. The main idea of Copyright dated back to the centuries when the idea of Printing Press came into force thereby it became a need to protect the rights of the Printers and Booksellers. In the land of India, the evolution of Copyright law took place in different stages: Firstly, the copyright law was established in India during the reign of British East India Company. Secondly after India got their independence from the British the first Copyright legislation came into force in 1957.Thirdly this Copyright Act 1957 was amended six times after independence. First and foremost, after this act was legislated it stated that the period for the copyrights of photographs which was mainly around 50 years from getting it published. The rights provided under the Copyright act 1957 mainly included the right of production of a certain work, communicating the work to the general people, proper alteration of the work and other changes of translation of the work as per the requirement. From these we can derive that the basic nature of Copyright act 1957 is that it varies from the type of work to be published and which are thereby to be protected from getting copyrighted.

One of the main elements for which their Intellectual Property elements are getting its pace rapidly is the domain of Plagiarism. In simple language Plagiarism in simple terms means the forgery or copying of ideas, text, data and various other works of varied creations and terming it to be their original work without giving proper acknowledgements, proper citations and references form which it is copied.

In order to protect the creativity and separate and to protect the original work of the author, creator or any researcher the idea of copyright came into existence. In relation to protection of those originated work and prevent plagiarism the editor and reviewers must be informed that when any portion of the work is taken by any other, proper URL and citation and reference must be given at the footnotes.

Various laws and related provisions have been developed through by the means of copyright so as to aware the author and inform them about the protection of the work. In some colleges it is stated that plagiarism is not a legal offence, but it is being proved in various cases it to be punishable in the court of law. By the means of copyright laws nowadays they may be compelled out of that institute if caught of plagiarism by law.

Once the work gets protected under the means of copyright law throughout the globe, the owner can sue the plagiarist if proved to be guilty under the court of law. No plagiarist can take the defense to prove how much of his work is pirated or not/rather will be charged under the copyright violation.

Copyright security is programmed under global law, however if your work is encroached proof might be required to help your case. It likewise stops encroachment (especially from the individuals who don't comprehend copyright) in the event that you clarify that your work is ensured under copyright law. So, guaranteeing the best assurance for your work depends on a few components.

The various ways of to ensure that the work is safely done are as follows: -

  1. Mark the work properly to ensure its safety - The work that is being done or being provided must be properly marked so as to ensure proper safety of the work done under the copyright protection law.

  2. Work must be registered - While filing for infringement of copyright it is essentially needed to be proved that the work is being properly registered so that the violation can be proved simultaneously giving a proper precedent.

  3. Agreements between co-authors - There must be proper agreements stating the rights available to the joint owners of the work so that less disputes may arise in near future and if situation takes so then there it can be proved the rights of those joint owners.

Copyright was at first important basically to distributed and sold works. The Internet has changed the manner by which individuals look for and distribute data, making it imperative to comprehend the manners by which copyright laws influence Internet use. Web based organizations and organizations that utilization the Internet for advancement and distribution of data ought to know of how to stay away from copyright encroachment, yet in addition of the assurances copyright laws stand to site administrators.

Copyright insurance is programmed for any imaginative work that is made after 1978 and fixed in some unmistakable structure. You don't need to show a copyright image or register rights to your thing for it to get copyright insurance. Hence, you ought to accept all substance on the Web is copyrighted except if it expressly states generally. Copyright laws are government laws, which implies you by and large need to sue in administrative court on the off chance that somebody abuses your copyrights. In the event that somebody from another nation takes your things - an undeniably regular marvel given the overall reach of the Internet - it very well may be incredibly hard to uphold your copyright security.

The "Fair Use Doctrine" gives a special case to copyright laws for insightful and instructive purposes. Reasonable use licenses individuals to take constrained portions of works for articles, scrutinizes and other open administrations. Satires of copyrighted works are additionally commonly secured. There is no standard portion that is reasonable under law, and rules about reasonable use are generally unspecific. On the off chance that your independent venture has had copyrighted material replicated from your site, courts look at the reason for the utilization of copyrighted work, the monetary impact the utilization has on the copyright holder, how much a thing was excerpted and the idea of the copyrighted work while deciding if an infringement has happened. For instance, an individual can't passage a photograph, so re-posting a photograph from your site may comprise copyright encroachment, however excerpting a line from a book you deal may not.

Since when a market of innovation and various productions has got its pace in the commercial market scenario the field of Intellectual Property especially has helped in protecting the rights of the originators and the creators in the various possible ways like at the very instance, it creates a public record of the ownership of the originator of the certain work. More importantly the copyright protection law helps the originator of a certain work or innovation to take a quick legal action against the person or individual or a certain body and bring them down before the court of law.


REFERENCE-

  • https://www.bananaip.com/ip-news-center/history-of-copyright-law/

  • https://www.checkforplagiarism.net/plagiarism-law

Prepared By-
Sagarnil Ghosh (BBA LL.B(H), SEM 2, ALSK)
Souptik Bhattacharyya (BBA LL.B(H), SEM 2, ALSK)

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