We’re pleased to bring to you a guest post by Karan Dhalla, a 4th year student at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. The post critically analyses the judgment passed by the Bombay High Court in Tips v. Wynk earlier this year, wherein it was held that the statutory licensing scheme under Section 31D of the Copyright Act does not apply to internet broadcasting. We’d covered this judgment in an earlier post here. Tips Industries v. Wynk Music: A Case…

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (September 9-15)

by Prarthana Patnaik September 15, 2019

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Prashant analysed the challenges highlighted by a recent report released by the Indian Music Industry (IMI) and Deloitte: (i) Music Piracy: He states that it is not very relevant in a day and age where everyone has free access to music if s/he has access to the internet. (ii) Value-gap: He agrees with the report’s stance on the issue of value-gap due to legislative measures such as: (1) Section 31D of the Copyright Act, which allows the radio and television industry to…

The IMI-Deloitte Report on the Indian Music Industry: Can Piracy Still Be a Problem in a World of Free Music?

by Prashant Reddy September 11, 2019

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The Indian Music Industry (IMI) which is the primary lobbying arm for the music industry, along with Deloitte’s consulting arm, has recently released a report on “The Economic impact of the recorded music industry in India”. The report is an attempt to place a value, not on the music industry, but its contribution to the economy by valuing its contribution to the various industries which use music as a “raw material”. As per the report, the music industry created a…

Trademark

Websites, the Virtual Juggernauts, Continue to Question Jurisdiction and Enforcement in Online Trademark Disputes

by Aparajita Lath September 9, 2019

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The borderless nature of the internet has, time and again, challenged conventional notions of jurisdiction and enforcement. While countries have a legitimate interest in protecting / preserving their laws, with the internet, there is always a fear of the law becoming a general law of the internet. Maintaining this balance is key when deciding questions that pertain to issues involving parties belonging to different jurisdictions. The Delhi High Court was tasked with resolving a trademark infringement and passing off dispute…

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (September 2-8)

by Arushi Gupta September 8, 2019

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This week, Divij Joshi wrote on the TikTok and ShareChat dispute, where TikTok served the latter with takedown notices, claiming it had ‘exclusivity’ over the content. Subsequently, ShareChat wrote to the Government, asking it to clarify whether TikTok is an intermediary, under Section 79 of the IT Act. To this effect, Divij asks a pertinent question—‘whether TikTok’s claims of ownership or ‘exclusivity’ over certain content on its platform change its status as an intermediary qualified for the exemptions under Section…

Band Baaja Baaraat & Copyright

by Devika Agarwal September 8, 2019

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Indian weddings are an expensive affair- a recent survey reports that 20% of all loans taken by young Indians in 2018-2019 was to fund their wedding expenses! It comes as some respite then for betrothed couples that the Indian Copyright Office has recently clarified (in a Public Notice No. 10-26/2019-CO) that licences are not required for utilisation of sound recordings in the case of marriage related functions. The clarification pertains to section 52(1)(za) of the Copyright Act. Section 52(1)(za) lays…

On Gandhi, Malamud and the JNU Data Depot

by Prashant Reddy September 7, 2019

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In response to my piece on the ‘JNU data depot’, I received a couple of emails from Carl Malamud alleging factual inaccuracies in my piece. I invited him to respond to the errors on SpicyIP, in response to which he started to abuse me. When I told him, I was going to publish the abusive email on SpicyIP, he apologized and the next day withdrew the apology in another abusive email. He then publicly attacked SpicyIP on Twitter. I find…

Events

SpicyIP Events: 5th Asian IP Works-in-Progress Conference [January 9-10, 2020; Hong Kong]

by Pankhuri Agarwal September 6, 2019

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We’re pleased to announce that the Applied Research Centre for Intellectual Assets and the Law in Asia (ARCIALA), School of Law, Singapore Management University will be co-organising the 5th edition of the annual ‘Asian IP Works-in-Progress Conference’ with School of Law, City University of Hong Kong on January 9-10, 2020. The deadline for submission of paper proposals is October 15, 2019. For further details, please read the announcement below: 5th Asian IP Works-in-Progress Conference [January 9-10, 2020; Hong Kong] Singapore…

Patent Trademark

Technology Has the Potential to Make Trademark Processes Easy Peasy

by Aparajita Lath September 4, 2019

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Singapore’s New Trademark App The Intellectual Property Office of Singapore has recently launched an app called ‘IPOS GO’ available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. The app provides various on-the-go trademark services, which include even direct filing of trademark applications (making this the world’s first mobile app for enabling the filing of trademark applications). The various functions that the app can perform are: “Use IPOS Go to: Apply for and renew trademark registrations in Singapore* Search…

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SpicyIP Weekly Review (August 26-31)

by Arushi Gupta September 3, 2019

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Last week, Rishabh Mohnot had reported that the IPAB’s website (ipabindia.org) was malfunctioning. This week, Rishabh wrote a report on the reasons for this. In his report, he states that the domain name was voluntarily auctioned to a private party on 2nd May this year! Further, the domain name, ending with ‘org’ has flouted the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW) 2018, under which a Government website must possess the secondary domain name ‘gov’. Thus, he suggests that the auction…