Mergers and acquisitions are among the most consequential transactions in commercial life. They involve the transfer of business value assets, revenue streams, operational capabilities, market positions from one set of owners to another, and they carry with them all the risks and liabilities that attach to the business being acquired. In an economy increasingly defined […]
India is one of the largest film-producing nations in the world. The Indian film industry encompassing Bollywood, the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi and numerous other regional language industries produces more films annually than any other country and commands a domestic and diaspora audience of enormous size and passionate engagement. The commercial value generated
Among the most persistent misconceptions in Indian intellectual property practice is the belief that copyright must be registered to exist. Authors, artists, software developers, filmmakers, and businesses that create original works routinely ask whether they need to register their copyright before they can enforce it, and whether an unregistered work attracts the full protection of
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International intellectual property law rests on a web of multilateral treaties and conventions that establish minimum standards of protection, define reciprocal obligations among member states and create the framework within which domestic copyright systems operate. At the centre of this web, for copyright, is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
Supreme Court of India | Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud & B.V. Nagarathna JJ. | 27 September 2021 Civil Appeal Nos. 5985-5990 of 2021 Background Section 31D was inserted into the Copyright Act, 1957 by the Copyright Amendment Act, 2012 (brought into force on 21 June 2012). It creates a statutory licensing regime for broadcasting organisations that
Saregama India Limited vs. Next Radio Limited & Ors Read More »
Visual creativity occupies a distinctive place in the copyright landscape. A photograph taken in a fraction of a second, a painting developed over months, a sculpture carved from stone, an architectural elevation drafted with precision each of these represents an act of creative expression that the law recognises and protects, yet each raises questions about
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The relationship between an author and a publisher is among the oldest and most commercially consequential in the creative economy. It is a relationship built on a fundamental asymmetry: the author possesses the creative work and the copyright that protects it, while the publisher possesses the infrastructure, expertise, distribution networks and capital required to bring
Social media has fundamentally transformed the relationship between copyright law and everyday human behaviour. Before the internet, the act of reproducing, distributing or communicating a copyrighted work to the public was largely confined to publishers, broadcasters and commercial enterprises with the infrastructure to do so at scale. Copyright infringement was, for the most part, a
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Delhi High Court | Manmohan J. | 1 July 2019 AIRONLINE 2019 DEL 972 | (2019) 262 DLT 734 | CS(COMM) 753/2017 Background MRF Limited (plaintiff), a leading tyre manufacturer operating in approximately sixty-five countries, launched a tyre series called MRF NV Series “REVZ” in June 2015. To promote this product, the plaintiff produced an
High Court of Madras | Decided: 28 February 1958 C.S. Nos. 54 of 1955 & 215 of 1954 Presiding Judge: Justice Rajagopala Ayyangar Background Two suits were tried together before the Madras High Court as they raised common questions of law relating to copyright infringement, though the facts of each were different. In C.S. No.
Blackwood and Sons Ltd. & Ors. v. A.N. Parasuraman & Ors. Read More »