Category Archives: Copyright

Copyright Innovation

Driving Them Up The (Pay)Wall – Sci-Hub and the Disruption of the Academic Publishing Industry

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Elsevier, one of the world’s largest publishing houses, has quite a hallowed history. Founded in 1880, it has today transformed itself from a small Dutch publisher of classical scholarship into a multi-billion dollar enterprise, controlling access to over 2,000 scientific and research journals and with some of the highest profits among any industry. Sci-Hub, a free, online, tool, has an admittedly humbler past. Started in 2011 by Kazakh student Alexandra Elbakyan, the project has no significant financial backing, its management is virtually…


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Copyright

Monkey Selfie Copyright Case Back in Court: What Implications for Artificial Intelligence?

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As some of you may have heard, the Monkey Selfie copyright case came back to court recently! Fortunately, we have a video of the court proceedings (last case before the court beginning around 1:45:17). As you can see, the judges grill PETA’s counsel extensively on PETA’s “locus standi” to represent Naruto, the monkey. Particularly since, Dr Antje Engelhardt, a primatologist who knew Naruto sine he was born and had a better claim to being his “next friend” has now parted ways…


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Copyright

Guest Post: Is a film more than celluloid?

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This post was edited once after it was initially published and it differs from the version emailed to the SpicyIP mailing list. In June, we had an interesting series of posts on the ‘physical copy’ doctrine regarding cinematograph films. Sreyoshi got the ball rolling with her post on the copyright infringement case against the producers of Raabta and this was followed by a post by Advocate Swaroop M. of the Madras High Court. We now have a third, very interesting…


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Copyright

Copyright Society or Company? Indian IP’s Home Grown Identity Crisis

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Termed as one of our very own pet peeves, Indian copyright societies have been the subject of several of our posts over the years. True to that topical history, we would like to direct our readers’ attention to a development from March, this year. Having stayed under the radar for the most part, it hadn’t been picked up by media channels, until last week in a coverage by radioandmusic.com. The report, which is available here, helpfully notes, “Quietly and almost…


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Copyright Publication

Cultivating The Commons

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Private IP rights are often seen to conflict with the larger public interest in accessing knowledge and the “commons”. Justice Prabha Sridevan recently penned a powerful piece on the commons, framing it not just through an IP lens but through a wider perspective involving the environment etc. Here are some excerpts:  ‘Even after man felt that there was need for fences and certificates of ownership, he still recognized that some lands must be kept in common for use by all…


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Copyright Overlaps in IP Trademark

Taj Mahal Palace Hotel First Building to Receive Trademark in India

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On 19th June, Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) obtained a trademark for the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, giving it the unique advantage of being the first building to receive a trademark in India.  While news reports refer to this as an “image mark”, it is the first time (please correct me if I’m wrong) that this term has been used in India. Rajendra Misra, Senior Vice President-General Counsel of IHCL explained the rationale behind this move – “One look at…


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Copyright Patent Trademark

Breaking News: Madras High Court Cautions Government Against Tribunal Appointments!

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In a major development today, the Madras High Court firmly ruled that all appointments to the 19 odd tribunals (under the purview of the impugned Finance Act and Rules) would be subject to the final order in the writ petition filed by the Madras Bar Association (MBA). The bench comprised Justice Indira Banerjee (Chief Justice of the Madras High Court) and Justice Bhavani Subbarayan (for whom incidentally, this was the very first day in court: what an auspicious start!). While…


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Copyright Innovation Overlaps in IP

Open/Secret – Assessing India’s Commitment to Open Data

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Image from here   The ‘Digital India’ slogan has not been enough to pull the government out of its digital data doldrums. India’s rank in the Global Open Data Index, which ranks countries on openness across various sets of government data, dropped 15 places to No. 32 between 2015 and 2016. While some gains have been made in the implementation of the data.gov.in portal under the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (“NDSAP”), these are fledgling in relation to the…


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Copyright

Sugar Hero v. Food Network: Copyright Infringement of ‘How-To’ Food Videos

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In an interesting case from the United States, an independent food blogger/entrepreneur has sued The Food Network for copyright infringement. Upon perusal of the IPKat coverage of the issue including the complaint (linked in the same coverage and available here), the factual matrix supporting the claim becomes fairly clear. The Facts Sugar Hero is a website run by blogger turned entrepreneur, Elizabeth Labau. Through this website, she shares her innovative, self-created recipes in creative ways including videos, pictures, etc. This…


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Copyright

The Philosophy Behind the ‘Physical Copy’ Doctrine

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This guest post has been written by MV Swaroop (with inputs from Shrey Patnaik). In this post, Swaroop and Patnaik analyse, in the context of the Raabta dispute, whether the producer of a film has the standing to sue for infringement, or if such action can only be brought by the scriptwriter. Our earlier posts on the Raabta dispute are available here and here. The Raabta-Magadheera controversy fizzled out a few days ago, with the producers of Magadheera withdrawing their suit. Then,…


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