Manshing is running a photocopy shop which was established in the year 1997 in the name and style of Maheswari Photocopy Services (defendant in this case). The said shop is located at the premises of Indian Institute of
CS Professional · Intellectual Property Rights - Law and Practice · PYQS · June 2024
Manshing is running a photocopy shop which was established in the year 1997 in the name and style of Maheswari Photocopy Services (defendant in this case). The said shop is located at the premises of Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. There are many students visiting this shop more frequently as the shop serves main source of course materials by way of xerox copies from various books both national and international published by different publishers. As such some Professors and Associate Professors of the said IIT creates course packs which contained excerpts from books written by other various authors of different publishing houses. The pages were xeroxed, bound and given to students at a nominal rate of Re. 0.50 paise per page. Oxford University Press Cambridge University Press (UK), Taylor & Francis Group (UK), Cambridge University Press India Ltd. and Taylor & Francis Books India P. Ltd. came to know about this course pack, they sued the defendant for the infringement of Copyright for distributing copies of their published books without proper authorization. The plaintiffs instituted this suit for the relief of permanent injunction restraining the two defendants from infringing the copyright of the plaintiffs in their publication by photocopying reproduction and distribution of copies of plaintiffs' publication on a large scale and circulating the same and by sale of unauthorised complications of substantial extracts from the plaintiffs publications by compiling them into course packs/anthologies for sale. Maheswari Photocopy Services received support from academics, activists, and students alike in response to the law suit and several petitions were submitted to be impleaded as defendants including the Society for Promoting Educational Access and Knowledge (SPEAK) and the Association of Students for Equal Access to Knowledge (ASEAK). A temporary injunction prohibiting defendant from selling the cloned course packages was issued by the Court. The defendant contended that no violations of copyright is committed by them as the reproduction is for educational reasons. They mentioned that Copyright specially in literary work is thus not an inevitable, divine, or natural right that confers on authors the absolute ownership of their creation. It is designed rather to stimulate activity and progress in the arts for the intellectual enrichment of the public. Copyright is intended to increase and not to impede the harvest of knowledge. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors in order to benefit the public. Questions: (b) What are the powers of Government of India to extent copyright to foreign works.
Answer & Explanation:
Answer 2(b) The Copyright Act applies only to works first published in India, irrespective of the nationality of the author. However, Section 40 of the Act empowers the Government of India to extend the benefits of all or any of the provisions of the Act to works first published in any foreign country. The benefits granted to foreign works will not extend beyond what is available to the works in the home country and that too on a reciprocal basis, i.e., the foreign country must grant similar protection to works entitled to copyright under the Act. The term of Copyright in India to the foreign work, will not exceed that conferred by the foreign country. Government of India has passed the International Copyright Order, 1958. According to this order any work first published in any country which is a member of the Berne Convention or the Universal Copyright Convention will be accorded the same treatment as if it was first published in India.
Topics: Copyright
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