Author name: Amlan Mohanty

Jailbreaking Sony Playstations To Be Illegal in India? – First Test of Newly Inserted S.65A of the Indian Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012

/ By / Copyright

  In an order passed earlier this year, the Delhi High Court passed an ex-parte injunction against the defendants for circumventing Technology Protection Measures (TPM’s) in the Sony Playstation 3 and other Sony game consoles. Given that the order was granted after the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012 was passed (although prior to notification), this is the first case to legally recognise the introduction of digital locks in hardware or software to protect copyright in India.   Importantly, the defendants are …

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SpicyIP Announcements: NLSIR Public Symposium on ‘Delimiting Media Freedoms’

/ By / Event

SpicyIP is pleased to announce the NLSIR Public Law Symposium on “Delimiting Media Freedoms: Discovering the ‘Delicate Balance’ Between Article 19 and Article 21” to be held on December 22, 2012. Last year, the editorial board of NLSIR spearheaded the first edition of the Public Law Symposium on the “Adjudication of Socio-Economic Rights by the Supreme Court of India” in an effort to initiate a systematic study of public law jurisprudence in India. The theme of the symposium this year …

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Guest Post: Grievance Officer in the IT Rules – An Invisible Man?

/ By / Others

  We are pleased to bring to our readers this guest post from Sooraj Abraham, on a recent decision of the Allahabad High Court on the appointment of a grievance officer under R.3(11) of the Intermediary Guidelines. I had written about the movement to annul these Guidelines last week, and the surprising support of the Indian Music Industry for its continuance.    This post explains the issues relating to the appointment of a ‘Grievance Officer’. Looks like just another reason …

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Copyright Enforcement v. Free Speech: Where does the Indian Music Industry Stand?

/ By / Copyright

It is indeed unfortunate that India’s intermediary liability regulations are set up in a way that has created a trade-off between protection of copyright and the free flow of speech. This is not because stakeholders are using copyright laws to stifle legitimate speech in India (like in some other countries), but more from the folly of using the same regulation to control both copyright infringement and ’objectionable’ content on the internet. Compare this to the U.S. system where the DMCA …

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President of Costa Rica Passes Executive Order Allowing Photocopying of Academic Materials. India, it’s time to wake up.

/ By / Copyright

“This opposition to the Intellectual Property Law is ideologically based and premised on a false choice. Photocopying for profit for academic use is authorized under Law 8,039.” – Laura Chinchilla, President of Costa Rica  Last week, after thousands of Costa Rican students gathered outside the legislature to oppose a law that could make it illegal to photocopy extracts from textbooks, the President of Costa Rica decided to clear the air with a presidential decree clarifying the exception extended to photocopying …

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5 Reasons Why Course Packs are Legal in India

/ By / Copyright

The recent order passed against Delhi University restraining it and Rameswhari Photocopy Service from producing course packs provides the context for this post. Quite simply, the order does not even begin to consider the applicable defences and held course packs to be illegal in India. The following points demonstrate why they are in fact legal under current Indian law. Current Indian law allows reproduction in the course of instruction  Section 52(1)(i)(i) of the Indian Copyright Act says ‘reproduction of a …

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Delhi University Restrained for Alleged Admission of Infringement: True Lies?

/ By / Copyright

This afternoon, in response to my post announcing a petition relating to the OUP-Delhi University copyright dispute, we were informed that an order had already been passed against Delhi University a few days ago. WHAT IS THE BASIS FOR THE INJUNCTION AGAINST DELHI UNIVERSITY & RAMESHWARI PHOTOCOPY SHOP? I have checked the Delhi HC website but the order is still not available. I managed to obtain a copy of the D.U.written statement, and having read it in its entirety, am convinced there is no …

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Appeal to Publishers to Withdraw Suit Filed against Delhi University

/ By / Copyright

We have previously covered the recent copyright dispute between Oxford University Press and other publishers against Delhi University in great detail. In this post, I explained why Delhi University must defend in court, its practice of photocopying course packs (consisting of only essential reading material required for a  particular course) for the benefit of  students who cannot afford to purchase a personal copy of the entire book. It appears that Delhi University is now slowly distancing itself from the photocopier and …

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (September Week 3)

/ By / Uncategorized

Notable developments in India 1. Kruttika Vijay, an ex-blogger at SpicyIP wrote a guest post on an important design case involving Whirlpool and Videocon. The specific design aspect was a washing machine which had a rectangular shape on one side and a semi-circular shape on the other with a jettisoned panel for the knobs. The court found that the design could not be invalidated despite arguments being advanced that it was not novel and had previously been published. Using the …

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Academic Publishers: An Insider’s View

/ By / Copyright

In my previous post, I had written about the support for Delhi Universities from other student bodies in India and the calls from several OUP authors to the publishers to drop the suit. With opposition coming in from the authors of such allegedly infringing books themselves, it becomes increasingly apparent that this entire litigation is about the publishers. In fact, I had reproduced a famous quote that went: “When we talk about copyright, we need to remember that we aren’t talking …

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