Every copyright must, at the moment it comes into existence, vest in someone. The question of who that person is who holds the copyright from the instant the work is created, before any assignment, any licensing arrangement or any commercial transaction has taken place is the question of first ownership. It is a question of
First Ownership of Copyright in India – Section 17 and Its Exceptions Read More »
Court: High Court of Delhi at New Delhi (Division Bench) Date of Decision: 1 July 2026 Case Number: FAO(OS)(COMM) 207/2025 & CM APPL. 79554/2025 Bench: Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Om Prakash Shukla BACKGROUND The appellant, ITC Limited, is a company engaged in the hospitality business and is the owner of a chain of
Every copyright dispute in India eventually returns to a single question: what exactly did the plaintiff own, and what did the defendant take? The answer almost never lies in the whole work. It lies in the line the law draws between an idea, which anyone may use, and the particular way an author has expressed
Idea-Expression Dichotomy in Indian Copyright Law: What Is Protected and What Is Not? Read More »
Copyright in architectural works occupies a distinctive and doctrinally unusual position within Indian intellectual property law a position shaped as much by the physical permanence of buildings and their entanglement with property rights, urban development and public function, as by the ordinary principles of authorial protection that govern paintings, sculptures and literary works. A building
Copyright in Architectural works under Indian law Read More »
The digital transformation of education represents one of the most significant shifts in the organization of knowledge transmission that human society has undergone since the invention of the printing press. Massive Open Online Courses MOOCs delivered through platforms like Coursera, edX, NPTEL, Swayam and their many competitors, have made it possible for a student in
Copyright in E-Learning, MOOCs and Online Education Content in India Read More »
The commercialization of photographic content through stock photography libraries and image licensing platforms represents one of the most mature and commercially sophisticated applications of copyright licensing in the creative economy. What began as physical libraries of transparencies and prints, laboriously cataloged and licensed through analogue processes, has evolved into a global digital industry worth billions
Copyright in Stock Photography and Image-Licensing Platforms in India Read More »
Supreme Court of India | Decided: 14 March 1977 Civil Appeal No. 967 of 1974 Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Jaswant Singh & Hon’ble Mr. Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer Citation: AIR 1977 SC 1443 | (1977) 2 SCC 820 | [1977] 3 SCR 206 Background The Indian Performing Right Society Limited, universally known in the Indian
Indian Performing Right Society Ltd. v. Eastern India Motion Pictures Association & Ors. Read More »
Supreme Court of India | Decided: 18 August 1978 Civil Appeal No. 1031 of 1973 Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Syed Murtaza Fazal Ali, Hon’ble Mr. Justice Jaswant Singh & Hon’ble Mr. Justice R.S. Pathak Citation: 1978 AIR 1613 | 1979 SCR (1) 218 | (1978) 4 SCC 118 Background R.G. Anand was a playwright, dramatist,
Supreme Court of India | Decided: 12 December 2007 Civil Appeal Nos. 6472 of 2004 & 6905 of 2004 Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice B.N. Agrawal & Hon’ble Mr. Justice P.P. Naolekar Citation: (2008) 1 SCC 1 | AIR 2008 SC 809 | 2008 (36) PTC 1 (SC) Background Eastern Book Company, a well-established partnership firm
Eastern Book Company & Ors. v. D.B. Modak & Anr. Read More »
Fashion sits at an uncomfortable intersection in intellectual property law. It is simultaneously one of the most creative and culturally significant industries in the global economy and one of the least comprehensively protected by the traditional frameworks of intellectual property. The tension is well known and widely debated: fashion design combines artistic expression with functional
Copyright Protection for Fashion and Textile Design in India Read More »