Author name: Amlan Mohanty

Google Launches Legal Music Search for India to Fight Piracy

/ By / Copyright

In a spectacular move, Google announced yesterday, the launch of a music service in India to help users search for legal online music streams and downloads. Our readers might remember a post from a week ago titled ‘Copyright Infringement is not Theft’. The post led to a rather passionate discussion in the comments section about the rampant piracy in India with some comments suggesting that people were just not willing to spend money on a legal purchase when they could […]

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‘Knock Out’ release on schedule despite copyright infringement suit

/ By / Copyright

The IBN Live website reports that the stay on the release of the film Knock Out (starring Sanjay Dutt and Irrfan Khan) has been reversed by the Division Bench of the Bombay High Court. The petitioner, 20th Century Fox claimed copyright infringement on the ground that the the film Knock Out, produced by Sohail Maklai is a direct copy of the film Phone Booth, whose copyright lies with 20th Century Fox after the original screenplay writer Larry Cohen entered into

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Is Google’s Caching Copyright Infringement?

/ By / Copyright

In this post, I will focus on the issue of ‘caching’ and whether it constitutes copyright infringement or not. WHAT IS CACHING? ‘Caching’ is a technical process which essentially involves the storage of data so that future requests for that particular data can be served faster. In relation to Google, this can be illustrated as follows: The primary objective of Google is to crawl as many web pages as possible and serve them as results to a user when certain

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Copyright Infringement is Not Theft

/ By / Copyright

Although this question is part of a long-standing debate in copyright law circles, I’ve picked up on this issue in light of recent comments emerging from the Obama administration, specifically by the current Vice President, Biden that “Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft“, and that “it should be dealt with accordingly.” It is perhaps important to contextualise his statement in light of two specific events that I find particularly relevant: 1. The recent ‘Joint Strategic Plan to Combat Intellectual Property Theft’

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Spicy IP Tidbit: WIPO Launches One-Stop Search & Reference Tool for IP Laws and Treaties

/ By / Uncategorized

In the age of digital databases and online resources, the WIPO has made an important contribution of its own by launching WIPO Lex, a wonderful resource available online, carrying a host of information on national intellectual property laws, legislations, treaties and conventions. More importantly, the interface is clean and simple, with a country-wise search bar that draws up a list of not only purely IP, but also IP-related information. This screenshot shows the results for India/Copyright using the search bar.

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Bollywood Piracy: Fighting Technology with Technology

/ By / Copyright

We are all aware of the rampant piracy affecting Bollywood but the scene of crime seems to have shifted to cyberspace in the recent past. Mybangalore directs us to news of how Bollywood has decided to fight the menace with an innovative, yet dubious strategy, which in a single line can only be described as ‘fighting technology with technology‘. Although the emergence of new technologies facilitating piracy and online distribution methods has been slightly belated in India, it is fast

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Bappi Lahiri & Bad Faith Litigation

/ By / Copyright

This post will cover the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit against an attorney representing Bappi Lahiri, for a bad faith and frivolous copyright infringement claim. Anthony Kornarens, a copyright lawyer based out of the United States, represented Bappi Lahiri, in a suit for copyright infringement and his conduct during the course of the suit formed the subject-matter of this case. The Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the district court, severely sanctioning the attorney

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National Law School of India Review: Call for Papers

/ By / Uncategorized

About the Journal:The National Law School of India Review is the bi-annual flagship journal of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Founded in 1988, the mandate of the Review is to encourage interest in legal writing. No topic of legal significance is beyond the purview for consideration. In the past, contributors to the Review have included justices of the Indian Supreme Court, senior advocates, leading academics and students from India and abroad. The contemporary relevance of publications, depth

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New Exemptions to the DMCA Anti-circumvention Rule

/ By / Copyright

With our recent readership survey producing enthused demands for international coverage as well, we will begin our reporting of important recent developments in international copyright law with the recently announced exemptions regarding circumvention of access-control technologies in respect of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This post may also be useful in the context of debates surrounding the inclusion of an anti-circumvention provision in the proposed amendments to the Indian Copyright Act (see Section 65-A and 65B). In this

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‘Inception’ and Ideas: Lessons for the Copyright Hungry

/ By / Copyright, Innovation

“An idea can transform the world and re-write all the rules. Which is why I have to steal it” – Dom Cobb (from the film ‘Inception’) It’s not often we quote lines from Hollywood movies on Spicy IP, but this particular dialogue by Leonardo DiCaprio in the recently released Hollywood film – Inception, immediately caught my attention and is certain to give any copyright law enthusiast a chill down the spine for its striking accuracy as well as its ability

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