Copyright Law

Copyright Issues in Social Media and User-Generated Content

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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Blackwood and Sons Ltd. & Ors. v. A.N. Parasuraman & Ors.

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.

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Copyright Duration – Rules for Different Categories of Works under Indian Law

Every grant of exclusive rights must, in a society that values both the reward of creative effort and the freedom of public access to culture and knowledge, have a defined limit. Copyright is no exception. The rights that the Copyright Act, 1957 confers upon authors, producers, performers and broadcasters are not permanent. They subsist for

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Copyright in Databases and Compilations under Indian Law

The question of whether a collection of information facts, data, references, records or  other pre-existing material assembled into an organised whole deserves intellectual property protection is among the most contested and practically consequential in copyright law. At its core, it forces a direct confrontation with the foundational tension between two equally legitimate values: the interest

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Copyright and Artificial Intelligence – Who Owns AI-Generated Works?

Few questions in contemporary intellectual property law have generated as much urgency, as much disagreement and as much genuine legal uncertainty as the question of who if anyone owns the copyright in a work generated by artificial intelligence. The question is not merely academic. Generative AI systems now produce novels, compose music, paint images, write

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Mattel Inc. & Ors. v. Mr. Jayant Agarwalla & Ors.

High Court of Delhi | Justice S. Ravindra Bhat | Date of Decision: 17.09.2008 Case Number: IA No. 2352/2008 in CS (OS) 344/2008 BACKGROUND The plaintiffs comprise a Delaware-incorporated company and its subsidiaries incorporated in the United Kingdom and India, engaged in the manufacture and marketing of toys, games and consumer products. Among their well-known

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Performer’s right and Broadcast reproduction right under The Copyright Act, 1957

Chapter VIII of The Copyright Act, 1957 i.e. rights of broadcasting organisation and of performers in section 37 deals with Broadcast reproduction right and in section 38 with Performer’s right. The Copyright Act, 1957 is principally understood as a statute that protects authors, composers, writers, painters and filmmakers who create original works Yet creative industries

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Copyright Societies in India : Statutory Architecture of Sections 33 to 36A

The administration of copyright in creative industries has never been a matter that individual rights holders can manage alone. A composer whose work is performed across thousands of radio stations, hotel lobbies, restaurants and streaming platforms simultaneously cannot possibly negotiate individual licences with each user, monitor unauthorised performances or collect royalties from each source. It

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Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. & Ors. v. Mr. Santosh V.G.

High Court of Delhi at New Delhi | Decided: 13 April 2009CS (OS) No. 1682 of 2006Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice S. Ravindra BhatCitation: 2009 SCC OnLine Del 835 | (2009) 40 PTC 694 (Del) Background Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and its associated and affiliated companies are among the world’s largest producers and distributors of cinematographic

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