Copyright

SpicyIP Tidbit: PPL Registered as a Copyright Society for Sound Recordings

/ By / Copyright

[This post is authored by Nilisa Majumder. Nilisa is a third-year student at The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. She has a keen interest in Intellectual Property Law, Public International Law, and Corporate Law.] On 11 June 2026 the Registrar of Copyrights registered Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) as a copyright society for sound recordings (here). The registration is under Section 33(3) of the Copyright Act, 1957, and comes on a Form X certificate. This development comes after […]

SpicyIP Tidbit: PPL Registered as a Copyright Society for Sound Recordings Read More »

The Copyright Reversion Right India Refused

/ By / Copyright

While reading the historical debates leading to the passing of the first post-independence Copyright Act in India, I came across some interesting passages that are relevant to a debate on a theme that seems to have lost its place in Indian Copyright jurisprudence – the Reversionary Right. On 14 May 1957, during the Rajya Sabha’s debate on the Bill that became the Copyright Act, Professor A. R. Wadia recorded his surprise that clause 18 of the Bill as introduced in

The Copyright Reversion Right India Refused Read More »

Image with SpicyIP logo and the words "Weekly Review"

SpicyIP Weekly Review (June 8-June 14)

/ By / Copyright, Patent, Trademark

A three-pass funnel for patent searches and NLUJ’s call for papers for the latest volume of the Journal of Intellectual Property Studies feature in this edition of the SpicyIP Weekly Review. Anything we are missing out on? Drop a comment and let us know. [Sponsored] 300 to 30 to 5: A Three-Pass Funnel for Patent Searches Under Deadline Finding relevant patents is no longer the bottleneck. The bottleneck is deciding which of the hundreds of relevant records actually matter and

SpicyIP Weekly Review (June 8-June 14) Read More »

Image with SpicyIP logo and the words "Weekly Review"

SpicyIP Weekly Review (May 25-June 7)

/ By / Copyright, Patent, Trademark

[This Weekly Review is authored by Vikram Raj Nanda. Vikram Raj Nanda is a third-year student at National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, with a keen interest in IP law, Competition Law, and Arbitration. His previous posts can be accessed here.] Ending May and stepping into June, here is our latest weekly review covering developments from May 25 to June 7. This review brought a mix of contemporary IP disputes and historical reflections. From the DHC’s ruling on keyword advertising

SpicyIP Weekly Review (May 25-June 7) Read More »

Oxford, Clarendon Building

Part I: From the Archives: When Oxford Sent a Letter to Amend the Indian Copyright Law in 1901 

/ By / Copyright, Others

Namaskar, It is easy—and intuitive too—to suppose that Indian copyright law was nothing but British law imposed upon India. Plausible though the assumption may appear, the reality was more meandering and infinitely more intriguing. The deeper one delves, the clearer it becomes how confounding the history of Indian copyright is and how much of its buried past still awaits excavation. In this post, I untangle one of its many threads. A few months ago, while rummaging through the archives at

Part I: From the Archives: When Oxford Sent a Letter to Amend the Indian Copyright Law in 1901  Read More »

The Copyright Strike as a Commercial Weapon: What Anamika Sood v. Saregama Does Not Say But Should

/ By / Copyright

What happens when copyright enforcement tools become instruments of commercial control rather than legal protection? In a significant ruling in Anamika Sood v. Google LLC & Saregama India Ltd., the Saket District Court declared independent artist Anamika Sood the rightful owner of her song “Ferrareee”, rejecting Saregama’s infringement claims over an expired copyright. But while the judgment resolves the ownership dispute, it leaves unresolved a larger structural concern: the growing misuse of automated copyright strike systems as tools of market

The Copyright Strike as a Commercial Weapon: What Anamika Sood v. Saregama Does Not Say But Should Read More »

A Brief History of the Official Language(s) of International Copyright Law

/ By / Copyright, Others

Bonjour. Today, I want to talk about something French. No, not wine. Not even cheese. But the French language, and my hobbyhorse: international copyright law. Here’s the story of why the beating heart of the Berne Convention still pulsates in French. As Article 37 of the Convention clarifies, while the Convention is drafted in both French and English, in the event of divergence, the French text prevails. Every time I glide through the Berne archives in French, I’m reminded: this

A Brief History of the Official Language(s) of International Copyright Law Read More »

Image with SpicyIP logo and the words "Weekly Review"

SpicyIP Weekly Review (May 18 – May 24)

/ By / Copyright, Others, Patent, Trademark

Entering the last week of May with a post tracing Indian copyright doctrine and what exactly does it protect. Post on the Delhi HC’s ruling in Bansal v. Philips, a consequential SEP/FRAND decision. And a post on the expanding and increasingly amorphous scope of personality rights in India, most recently in the case of Aniruddhacharya Ji Maharaj. Case summaries and IP developments from the country and the globe and much more in this week’s SpicyIP Weekly Review. Anything we are

SpicyIP Weekly Review (May 18 – May 24) Read More »

Defragmenting the “Work” : A Critique of Ivy Entertainment’s “Hook” Injunction

/ By / Copyright, Innovation

On 15 May 2026, a Single Judge of the Delhi High Court passed an ex parte ad-interim order in Ivy Entertainment v. Rahul Singh restraining the defendants from making any use of one line of lyric, jaane meri janeman bachpan ka pyar bhool nahi jaana re, on the footing that this fragment is the “distinctive hook line” of a song in which the plaintiff, an acquisition vehicle that purchased a portfolio of 1,250 songs in November 2025, claims copyright. The

Defragmenting the “Work” : A Critique of Ivy Entertainment’s “Hook” Injunction Read More »

A Personality Too Spiritual for Satire?

/ By / Copyright, Others, Overlaps in IP, Privacy, Trademark

I had underestimated how much of the personality rights space in India is one big, vague, wild west! The personality rights order passed by the Delhi High Court in favour of the plaintiff, Anil Kumar Tiwari (aka Aniruddhacharya Ji Maharaj) shows what happens when an already confusing jurisprudence continues to develop without guardrails: IP law protections are claimed for ineligible content; social commentary based on meme-culture collides with ambiguous private rights; and, doctrinal confusion continues to blur the scope of

A Personality Too Spiritual for Satire? Read More »

Scroll to Top