Category Archives: Copyright

Topical Highlight What’s in a Stream? The Confounding Case of IPRS’s Live-Streaming Tariffs Divij wrote about the confusion created by Indian Performing Rights Society’s newly released tariff scheme for live streaming of online events and live/disc-jockey performances. He first discusses the problems with the scope of the notice which defines ‘live performance’ as music by performers in person, and disc jockeys as playing of a sound recording. He then explains the lack of clarity as to whether digital streaming of…

Delhi High Court’s Dynamic Injunction in Favour of Disney: An Unclear and Overbroad Exercise?

by Nikhil Purohit August 3, 2020

Leave a Comment

Recently, in a suit filed by Disney for protection of its copyrighted content, the Delhi High Court granted the interim relief in its favour. As aptly described in the order, Disney is ‘in the business of creation, production and distribution of motion pictures/cinematograph films.’ It filed the impugned suit against certain ‘rogue’ websites that were illegally making its copyrighted content available on their platforms. Through the injunction, the court has restrained the ‘rogue’ websites arrayed as defendants in the suit,…

Announcing the Winners of the 1st Shamnad Basheer Essay Competition on IP Law!

by SpicyIP August 3, 2020

4 Comments

On May 14, 2020, on the occasion of Shamnad‘s 44th birth anniversary we had announced the first edition of the Shamnad Basheer Essay Competition on Intellectual Property Law. We opened the topic selection out to participants – asking them to choose any topic they wanted so long as it related to IP. And encouraged participants to draw inspiration from Shamnad’s scholarship. Despite being announced in the middle of a pandemic, the response to the essay competition has been overwhelming –…

Trade Secrets Protection and Incentives to Innovate: Scrutinizing Section 91 of The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019

by SpicyIP July 30, 2020

2 Comments

We are pleased to bring you a guest post by Sahaja Burde, on the ongoing regulatory efforts surrounding ‘non-personal data’. Sahaja is a 3rd year student at ILS College, Pune. In this post, Sahaja examines the provisions of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 dealing with non-personal data and their interplay with copyright and trade secret law in India. Trade Secrets Protection and Incentives to Innovate: Scrutinizing Section 91 of The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 Sahaja Burde Introduction…

What’s in a Stream? The Confounding Case of IPRS’s Live-Streaming Tariffs

by Divij Joshi July 29, 2020

Leave a Comment

Angry-looking musician holding a mike on a stage

The Indian Performing Rights Society (IPRS) has been keeping busy during the COVID pandemic. In an undated notice, uploaded earlier in July, it announced a new tariff scheme for ‘live-streaming of online events and live/disc-jockey performances’. After receiving backlash from singers, musicians and popular press, reports have emerged that the tariffs have been put on ‘hold’ until September, 2020. In this post, I will examine some of the issues and concerns this notice has raised. [Important Edit 29/7: I missed…

Functionality in Copyright Law : CJEU Decision in Brompton Bicycles

by Mathews P. George July 29, 2020

Leave a Comment

In this post, I would like to discuss a recent judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Brompton Bicycle (C-833/18). This judgment is relevant in the context of Section 52(1)(w) of the Copyright Act which provides as follows: “The following acts shall not constitute an infringement of copyright, namely:- (w) the making of a three-dimensional object from a two-dimensional artistic work, such as a technical drawing, for the purposes of industrial application of any purely…

Tattoos: The Tussle between Copyright and Publicity Rights

by Adyasha Samal July 28, 2020

Leave a Comment

The world’s attention was first drawn to the copyrightability of tattoos when Victor Whitmill, the artist behind Mike Tyson’s face tattoo, sued Warner Bros for an imitative tattoo worn by an actor in Hangover II. Since then, I find that there has been a raging discussion regarding tattoo artists’ copyright over their tattoos, including issues like fixation, ownership and fair use. This post does not focus on these questions of copyrightability. Instead, it develops upon an important point raised by…

SpicyIP Weekly Review (July 20 – 26)

by Namratha Murugeshan July 27, 2020

3 Comments

Topical Highlight Does JioMeet’s GUI Infringe Copyright in Zoom’s Software? Nikhil wrote about the controversy of JioMeet’s GUI infringing Zoom’s software. Addressing the controversy that ensued after JioMeet was released, the issue of non-literal copying of computer software is examined. Nikhil explores the primary considerations that courts would need to address on the issue and the possible outcomes. First, the copyrightability of Zoom’s GUI is analyzed under Section 2(o) and Section 2(ffc) of the Copyright Act. Then, the particular elements…

The Fortunes of Indian Copyright Societies

by Prashant Reddy July 25, 2020

1 Comment

A few years ago in 2018, I had written about the financial state of Indian copyright societies dealing with music. At the time, things were not looking well for the two main copyright societies in the music industry, which are the Indian Performing Rights Societies (IPRS) and the Phonographic Performance Ltd. (PPL). While IPRS collects royalties for use of music and lyrics, PPL collects royalties for use of the sound recordings. The revenues for both copyright societies at the time…

Onerous Copyright Licensing, Fair Dealing and Alternatives to TikTok

by Anupriya Dhonchak July 23, 2020

Leave a Comment

Content sharing platform TikTok is the first among the list of apps in the Indian government’s recent Press Release, announcing a ban on 59 Chinese applications due to concerns such as threat to “sovereignty and integrity of India.” As mentioned in an insightful piece by Ameet Datta, there are many copyright obstacles before the call to find a comparable Indian substitute for TikTok can be materialised. Datta refers to three types of licenses that any service modelled on TikTok’s format…