The Copyright Amendment Bill, 2012 is successfully
passed in the Parliament, is now waiting to be signed by the President. This
bill marks a historic turning in the foster of Copyright laws in India.
It introduces many pertinent changes in the Copyright laws. One of the
characteristics of the Bill is that it has tried to make certain definitions.
It defines commercial rental, Rights management information, visual
recording.
Cinema is one of the craziest stuff that
we, Indians have promoted and enjoyed a lot. Thus, the amendment with regard to
the royalties payable to the music composers and lyricists is very much
celebrated by the people. Right from the Oscar holder A.R.Rahman to the
celebrities like Javed Akhtar & Shankar Mahadevan had struggled a lot to
get this amendment pass in the Indian Legislature. Under the former
provision these music composers and lyricists didn’t have right to claim
royalty equally. The problem was especially with regard to the cinematographic
works or generally cinemas. The copyright for the movie either goes to its
producer or its director. The lyricist and the music composers usually assign
their copyright for their work to these people for the money considerations
thus lacking right to claim any equal amount of royalty. Now the amended law
has made eligible for the music composers and the lyricists to claim an equal
share of royalties and consideration payable in case of utilization of their work.
Another interesting amendment is that to
relinquish the copyright, the author may merely give a public notice. The Bill
also amends that the photographs shall enjoy copyright protection as that of
any artistic, literary, musical work (cheers to the photographers…). The Bill
in addition enables the author to license any of his work by mere writing
document not necessarily signed. Again the Bill proposes that the compulsory
license shall be granted for any works rather than ‘ Indian works’ which is
indeed a really good provision as it facilitates for more availability of works
to the people. Another significant amendment is that it allows any person
working for the benefit of persons with disability on a profit basis or for
business, to apply to the Copyright Board for a compulsory license to publish
any work in which copyright subsists, for the benefit of such persons. Moreover
these applications need to be disposed off as soon as possible in a favorable
manner. This Bill also makes a provision with regard to the cover version
copies, which shall be made only after 5 years of making the original. It
requires that the cover version be of same medium as the original. So if the
original is on a cassette, the cover cannot be released on a CD. Also strict
regulations are made like the cover version should claim it to be the cover
version & not to be misleading, royalty to be paid in advance if 50, 000
copies are to be made, no alterations to be made except for the technical
necessities.
This
Amendment Act also inserts that every copyright society shall be registered for a period of five
years and may be renewed from time to time before the end of every five years
on a request in the prescribed form. This bill also elaborates more upon the
performers rights like he/she can claim for royalty in case of making of the
performances for commercial use; performer of a performance shall,
independently of his right after assignment, either wholly or partially of his
right, have the right to claim to be identified as the performer of his
performance and to restrain or claim damages in respect of any
distortion, mutilation or other modification of his performance that would be
prejudicial to his reputation.
Again the fair dealing provisions are now applicable to all the works and also says that the transient or incidental shortage of a work or performance purely in the technical processor electronic transmission or communication to the public or for the purpose of providing electronics links,access or integration, where such links, access or integration has not been expressly prohibited by the right holder will be an exception.This is available only till he/she who does such storage a complaint from the copyright holder alleging it to be infringement.In such a circumstance he/ she shall not use this works for a period of 21 days or till he/she gets a court order prohibiting them to continue.
By
S.Deepika
for
Biswajit Sarkar
