An Indian Book Company is a registered partnership firm carrying the business of publishing Law Books. It publishes and prints various books in the field of law. Among many books published by them Law Reports is one of t

Originality is the basic yardstick used by the copyright regimes in the world to evaluate the availability copyright protection to a particular work. Section 13(1) of the Indian Copyright Act 1957 states that copyright subsists in "original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works." However, the Act fails to give any definition or test to determine originality of a work. This leaves the court with the duty to decide the amount of originality required for a work to claim copyright protection. India strongly followed the doctrine of 'sweat of the brow' for a considerably long time. In Eastern Book Company Vs. D.B.Modak , the Supreme Court discarded the 'Sweat of the Brow' doctrine and shifted to a 'Modicum of creativity' approach as followed in the US. The dispute is relating to copyrightability of judgments. The notion of "flavor of minimum requirement of creativity" was introduced in this case. The Court granted copyright protection to the additions and contributions made by the editors of SCC. At the same the Court also held that the orders and judgments of the Courts are in public domain and everybody has a right to use and publish them and therefore no copyright can be claimed on the same. The Court further referred the principle of a minimal degree of creativity, i.e., there should be a minimum degree of creativity in derivative work to show that the copy-edited version of the Judgment is not an original work. It can be concluded from this case that the jurisdiction of Copyright protection under the Copyright Act, 1957, finds itself in fair play. At the point when an individual produces something with his ability and work, it provides possession to him, for his/her production and the other individual would not be allowed to make a benefit out of the expertise and work of the primary creator, who had initially produced. It is for this reason that the Copyright Act of 1957, gives the authors absolute privilege of the floor in terms of exclusive rights for their originally produced work, also considered as non-tangible prerogatives in various legislation. This Act puts a check on the exploitation of the original owner against the use of his work without his consent. Lastly, the Court did not allow the Respondents to sell their CD ROMS with the text of judgments of the Supreme Court Cases along with their own headnotes, footnotes, and other inputs. The Judgment of the High Court was modified to the extent that in addition to the interim relief, the above-mentioned additional relief to the appellants was also granted by the Apex Court. The concept of "originality" has undergone a paradigm shift from the "sweat of the brow" doctrine to the "modicum of creativity" standard put forth in Feist Publication v. Rural Telephone Service by the United States Supreme Court. The doctrine of "sweat of the brow" provides copyright protection on basis of the labour, skill and investment of capital put in by the creator instead of the originality. In Feist's case, the US Supreme Court totally negated this doctrine and held that in order to be original a work must not only have been the product of independent creation, but it must also exhibit a "modicum of creativity". Through the skill and judgement test, major shift was observed in the approach of Courts in India from 'sweat of the brow' to 'modicum of creativity'. This position was steered by the landmark Eastern Book Company case which paved the way for a positive development in the sphere of determining the originality of a work by the Courts. A recent case was decided by the Delhi High Court on September 29, 2014 ( Tech Plus Media Pvt. Ltd. v. Jyoti Janda & Ors ), wherein the copyright of databases was discussed. Earlier in the case of Burlington Home Shopping v. Rajnish Chibber , it was held that a compilation may be considered a copyrightable work by virtue of the fact that there was devotion of time, labour and skill in creating the said compilation. In the case of The Chancellor Masters and Scholars of The University of V. Narendra Publishing House and Ors . The question before the Court was whether guide books, comprising of the answers of mathematical questions provided in the plaintiff's book, published by the defendant would constitute copyright infringement. The Court while applying the test of originality as held in EBC case, held that such publication of guide books would not constitute copyright infringement. Summing up the Indian approach to test the originality of a work, the Delhi HC held in a recent case held that "... not every effort or industry, or expending of skill, results in copyrightable work, but only those which create works that are somewhat different in character, involve some intellectual effort, and involve a certain degree of creativity". Originality requires only that the author makes the selection or arrangement independently and that some minimal amount of creativity is present in the work of the author. While a copy of something in the public domain will not, if it be merely a copy, support a copyright, a distinguishable variation will. Also, it is important to note that for copyright protection, the work created by the author should be a result of substantial variation and not a result of trivial variation. In order to encourage the avenues of research and development, the law has been practical to hold that for originality, the work in question is not required to contain novelty. India provides a practical approach in the ascertainment of a original work as it does not completely rely on modicum of creativity as developed by the U.S. Courts, in fact, it very well balances the sweat of the brow approach with the creativity element by ensuring that skill and judgment are exercised by the author in the creation of an original work. Since, the issue of originality is centric to the copyrightability of a work, regard has to be placed on the skill and judgment test to be applied on the factual circumstances of every individual case.