Several unpublished Ph.D. dissertations and television documentry are lying idle in university library. A publishing house interested to publish these unpublished Ph.D. dissertations in the form of book and reproduce the

The law on this particular point can be ascertained from the language of section 31 and section 31A of the Copyright Act, 1957. Section 31 of the Copyright Act, 1957 provides that: 'if at any time during the term of copyright in any work which has been published or performed in public, a complaint is made to the Copyright Board that the owner of copyright in the work (a) has refused to re-publish or allow the re-publication of the work or has refused to allow the performance in public of the work, and by reason of such refusal the work is withheld from the public; or (b) has refused to allow communication to the public by broadcast of such work or in the case of a sound recording the work recorded in such sound recording, on terms which the complainant considers reasonable, the Copyright Board, after giving to the owner of the copyright in the work a reasonable opportunity of being heard and after holding such inquiry as it may deem necessary, may, if it is satisfied that the grounds for such refusal are not reasonable, direct the Registrar of Copyrights to grant to the complainant a license to republish the work, perform the work in public or communicate the work to the public by broadcast, subject to payment to the owner of the copyright of such compensation and subject to such other terms and conditions as the Copyright Board may determine.' Compulsory License in Unpublished or Published Works Further, section 31A of the Copyright Act, 1957 provides that: 'Where, in the case of any unpublished work or any work published or communicated to the public and the work is withheld from the public in India, the author is dead or unknown or cannot be traced, or the owner of the copyright in such work cannot be found, any person may apply to the Copyright Board for a license to publish or communicate to the public such work or a translation thereof in any language.' Section 31A further provides that before making an application to the Copyright Board, the applicant is required to publish his proposal in one issue of a daily newspaper in the English language having circulation in the major part of the country and where the application is for the publication of a translation in any language, also in one issue of any daily newspaper in that language. The section continues to lay down that the Copyright Board after holding such inquiry as may be prescribed, direct the Registrar of Copyrights to grant to the applicant a license to publish the work or a translation thereof in the language mentioned in the application subject to the payment of such royalty and subject to such other terms and conditions as the Copyright Board may determine, and thereupon the Registrar of Copyrights shall grant the license to the applicant in accordance with the direction of the Copyright Board. In the facts of the present case, generally, the ownership over the dissertation belongs either to the University or the Student itself (if agreed to by the University). The publishing house is thus not entitled to approach the Copyright Board asking for grant of a compulsory license to publish the work, at the first instance. It has to first approach the Copyright Owner/Holder seeking its permission for such publication / republication. However, if later it is found that the Copyright owner/holder is unreasonable in withholding or refusing to grant its consent for such publication or re-publication of the work, then a case can be made out before the Copyright Board who shall consider and decide the matter on its own merits.