FACTS : Anand, the news reporter on behalf of the print media newspaper WORLDNEWS approach Alexander for his comments on the Indian foreign policy after the surgical strike of Indian force against Pak Sponsored terrorism

CS Professional · Intellectual Property Rights - Laws and Practices · PYQS · June 2019
FACTS : Anand, the news reporter on behalf of the print media newspaper WORLDNEWS approach Alexander for his comments on the Indian foreign policy after the surgical strike of Indian force against Pak Sponsored terrorism. Alexander assured him to provide a piece of article written by him instead of the interview due to paucity of time. His Article was critical of the role of Pakistan and China on terrorism issue. Subsequently, he sends the article to Anand, which he submits to the WORLDNEWS as an editorial article after making certain corrections. The edited version of article is soft on China for his role of international terrorism. Based on above facts answer the following questions : Is there any violation of the rights of the author of the copyright work?

Answer & Explanation:

There exists no copyright in news or facts or information, as the same are neither created nor have they originated with the author of any work, which embodies these facts. Facts may be discovered and discovery of facts cannot be given the protection of copyright. The protection of copyright is afforded only when a fact or event or information or material is applied to create a form of work, literary or otherwise. When there is no copyright in news, there can be no infringement of an original 'idea' either, copyright may exist in the manner of expressing it. That being the position, any edited piece of work which had an established amount of skill, labour and capital put as inputs would amount to innovative thoughts and creation of the editor. Copyrighted material is that what is created by the author by his own skill and labour. The news element in the information reporting current events contained in the literary production is not the creation of the writer, but is a report of matters that ordinarily are publici juris; let us put in different words, it is the history of the day. They can never be copyrighted and are part of the public domain available to every person. Accordingly, there is no direct violation of the economic rights of Alexander. However, the Copyright Act provides two kinds of rights to author or the owner of the copyright work i.e. economic rights and moral rights. While economic rights deal with the commercial benefit of the copyright work, the moral rights deal with the right of integrity, alteration etc. The economic rights are subsisting in the copyright work for the number of years of copyright protection, wherein moral rights are perpetual. In the given case, the moral rights of the author have been affected. His work was modified, altered without his permission and therefore changing the character of the information shared by the author. This amounts to copyright violation of moral rights.

Topics: Copyright Law

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