The copyright dispute between the business daily The Mint and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has finally snowballed into a full-blown legal battle with the Mint’s parent company Hindustan Times Media Ltd. managing to convince the Delhi High Court to pass an ex-parte order, ordering the CSE to remove all infringing content from its website – http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in .
A couple of months ago the Mint’s editor, in a hard-hitting post on his blog, had pointed out that the CSE had been infringing on his newspaper’s copyrights by carrying entire reproductions of the Mint’s free articles on its websites without securing prior permission from the Mint. (Please click here and here to read more of this dispute). The Mint proceeded to serve a legal notice on the CSE and the CSE claims to have complied with the notice. However the HT Media’s legal counsel has been quoted as saying that they served two legal notices on CSE but to no avail since the website in question was still carrying over 800 articles whose copyright belonged to the HT Group. I visited the website and did a search for Hindustan Times articles and I got a really lengthy search list. There is no doubt that CSE’s website is still carrying the infringing website. I’m surprised that the CSE forgot to remove 800 articles after receiving a legal notice!!! [Correction: It appears that the CSE has removed the infringing content from its website although the search engine is displaying HT articles within the results. However when you click on the HT articles then in that case it displays a message saying “You are not authorized to view this article”.]
It is possible that the folks at CSE thought they had to remove only the Mint’s articles because the initial outburst was from the Mint’s editor. I’m guessing that they missed out on the fact that the legal notices were from the HT Media group and not just the Mint which is one of the many newspapers controlled by the HT Media group.
According to the Mint the head of CSE – Sunita Narain responded to the court order with the following words:
“We’ve already removed all the articles,” insisted Sunita Narain, director of CSE. “This is thoroughly unprofessional. Only criminal companies such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCo use interim orders and file suits without informing all the parties.”
Three quick points in regards this statement:
Firstly – CSE has not removed the infringing content as is obvious from a visit to its website.
Secondly – HT Media group served two legal notices and only then moved court for relief. What is unprofessional about that? Unless of course the legal notices required them to remove only Mint;s articles and not HT articles.
Thirdly – If Pepsi and Coca-Cola ever wanted to settle scores with Ms. Narain, she’s presented them with a brilliant opportunity, by calling them ‘criminal companies’.
However I must add that this quote was given to the Mint in an interview and the Mint is one of the interested parties in the litigation. We’ll try and contact Ms. Narain and get her side of the story.
Coming to the legal aspects of this dispute I would have to say that this is a tough case. We’ve covered this previously in a previous post. Initially it appeared that the HT Group had a open and shut case. However that was only until it was pointed out that they could claim a defence under Section 52(1)(m) of the Copyright Act which reads as follows:
The following acts shall not constitute copyright infringement:
(1)(m) the reproduction in a newspaper, magazine or other periodical of an article on current economic, political, social or religious topics, unless the author of such article has expressly reserved to himself the right of such reproduction
Please note that the section uses the word author and not owner. The HT Media Group is the owner and not the author. The only way to prevent the application of Section 52(1)(m) is by putting up a notice by the author forbidding the reproduction of the article without his exclusive permission.
The moot point in my opinion is whether this provision will cover websites? Two of our readers Divs & Anon. Coward had an intensive, no-holds barred discussion with me in the comments section of this previous post. We ended by agreeing to dis-agreeing. Feel free to add to the debate.
I appreciate the contributions that CSE has been making in the area of Environmental journalism over the past few decades. It is pity that they have got trapped in this particular case which is a clear infringement of copyright of the news dailies. Some might argue that this may be a case of fair use, but remember “deep-linking” may also be a infringement of copyright.
@Anonymous (10:28 P.M.)
That’s the point, old chap. The ridiculousness of it all.
Deep-linking, some have argued, is copyright infringement. Then the vast majority of the more than 1 trillion pages that Google’s bots have found on the World Wide Web are infringing copyright. Including Spicy IP. I believe the World Wide Web should be shut down and Vint Cerf should be imprisoned immediately for having come up with an easy way of implementing hyperlinks, thus facilitating mass copyright infringement. Even going by the tests that the U.S. Supreme Court has laid down in the Grokster case, it is clear that Mr. Cerf very clearly intended to induce and encourage copyright violation by the numerous examples he has provided through the years of deep-linking. (Check out the W3C website — it is full of deep-links to other sites.)
I demand that Spicy IP either stops deep-linking to other pages, or at the very least makes out a case for why deep-linking is not copyright infringement.
– A.C.
P.S. I think it is a pity how “a clear infringement of the news dailies” is so glibly used. It is not clear to me. Please do not assume such clearness in everyone’s eyes and head. If you believe it is infringement, please tell us how and why it is so. I believe it falls under fair dealings as it falls under s.52(1)(m) of the Copyright Act. Why do you think that it is not fair dealing?
Agyaat Kaayarji,
Aapko hindi ka bada shauk hai na, tho chaliye is baar hindi me vartaalap ho jaaye.Shuru kardi phir se aapne apni nautanki?(nautanki means drama not nine tanks as in “nau” “tanki”)Aapko to “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron” chalchitr (featured film) me Bheem ka paatr nibhana chahiye tha kyonki aapko hamesha shaant karna padta hai. Behtar hoga ki aap apni ek naatak mandali shuru kardijiye apne mitron ke saath jiska naam ho “Agyaat Kaayar Aur Uske Chaheete Namoone”, isse aapke hunar ki pehchaan bhi hogi aur darshakon ka man bhi behel jaayega.
Lagta hai vyangya ki bhaasha me aapko mahaarath praapth hai, usse hum bade hi prabhaavit hain, parantu aap aadmi kam aur pyjama zyaada hain. Kabhi to apni buddhi ka sahi upyog kar diya kijiye.
Agar uchit upyog (fair use) baaki patrikaon (newspapers) par laagu hota hai, tho MasaaledaarIP matbal SpicyIP par kyon nahi? har baar jhandi leke khade ho jaate hain jaise ki aapke siwa aur kisi ke paas Bhaghwan ki dee hue buddhi hi na ho. Arre haan, abhi yaad aaya, aapto naastik hain. Aapke blog ko mai aaj kal pad raha hoon aur jitna bakwaas aap karte hain aur koi shayad hi kar paaye. Kitna samay bitaate hain aap blog par likhne me??? isse ye pata chalta hai ki phaaltu ka samay aapke paas bahut hai, kripya baakiyon ka samay nasht mat kijiye kyonki aisa karne ka aapko koi adhikaar hi nahi hai. Ab ye mat poochiye ki mai aapke phaaltu vichaaron ko padkar apna samay kyon nasht kar raha hun, woh isliye kyonki mai aapke rog ka anumaan lagaana chahta hun.
28 saal ke ho gaye hain aur ab tak aapka bachpana nahi gaya, angootha choosna band kijiye aur apne dhoosar padaarth (matbal grey/gray matter) ka kabhi to sadupyog kijiye.
Agyaat Maharathi aur SpicyIP ka Shubhchintak
Gentlemen I don’t think this is a case of deep-linking. The CSE’s website was carrying entire reproductions of the articles on its website. There was no linking up to the Mint’s website at all.
Prashant
[Correction: It appears that the CSE has removed the infringing content from its website although the search engine is displaying HT articles within the results. However when you click on the HT articles then in that case it displays a message saying “You are not authorized to view this article”.]
Hey Prashant..
On “The moot point in my opinion is whether this provision will cover websites..”
I stick to my earlier stand…the provision IMHO should extend to websites as well…
@Anon…remember “deep-linking” may also be an infringement of copyright…
I guess you are referring to Naukri v. Bixee.. copying of the entire database, hence commercial losses accruing to Naukri leading to an infringement action..(or are there other cases as well??)
However,I agree with Prashant that this is not the case of deep linking but pertains to Fair Use… or to frame it differently, if deeplinking of websites containing news items et al would constitute fair use or not. Wat say?
Cheers!!!
@AM&SIPkS
“. . . aap aadmi kam aur pyjama zyaada” made my day!
That apart, I am left feeling that sarcasm does not become me.
Cheers
A.C.
P.S. What would “blog” be in the fair tongue?
Hey Prashant,
I guess my Comment got Lost somewhere…
@The moot point in my opinion is whether this provision will cover websites?
I stick to my stand…
@ Anon:
‘remember “deep-linking” may also be a infringement of copyright.’
I guess Anon’ referring to the Naukri- Bixee case.. copying of databases led to commercial losses..(or is it someother case that I missed out)
i agree with Prashant that this is not a case of deeplinking.. but if i may be allowed to paraphrase.. I guess it revolves around.. “deeplinking of literature (websites containing literature) on the web amounting to infringement or not”.. Wat say?
Cheers!
@Prashant & Divs
_This_ case isn’t about deep-linking. But the interesting point that Anonymous (10:28 P.M.) brings up is: isn’t there a controversy regarding deep-linking too?
Currently it is being argued that CSE should have merely provided headlines / precis with a link to the complete articles on the Mint/HT websites, instead of copying wholesale. Anonymous’s point is (if I read it correctly): can _that_ be construed to be infringement?
@ AC..
well.. what i meant was the qn here was not if deeplinking takes place or not, but rather as i paraphrased it in my reiterated comment..”deeplinking of literature (websites containing literature) on the web amounting to infringement or not”..
I agree that deeplinking is a qn to be looked at here.. but it IMO is not the root qn… but perhaps the xylem through which the qn penetrates..
I think.. we need to look at first if websites fall under the ambit of 52(1)(m).. which IMHO does qualify…(my opinion was agreeably disagreed to last time arnd)..
and then see if deeplinking of these takes place or is it a simple ctrl c ctrl v action and the appending issues….
@ System administrator.. pls chk out the comments section.. some prob wid posting them…
Cheers!
Very nice!! How much?