RIGHTFULLY CLAIMING COPYRIGHT LEGAL REMEDIES AVAILABLE IN CASES OF INFRINGEMENT

 RIGHTFULLY CLAIMING COPYRIGHT LEGAL REMEDIES AVAILABLE IN CASES OF INFRINGEMENT

Although registration is prominent in modern Indian Copyright Law, the country's basic view is to safeguard authors without them requiring registration of their work. Anyone who creates copies of a work without the author's or copyright owner's consent can be prosecuted for violation, which can result in injunctive relief, damages or even criminal charges.

The approach that expressive works are entitled to safeguard without scrutiny and, in various cases, without registration took over the development of copyright law. Pre-publication protection wouldn't have been possible under general law if the early examination was essential since one of the main purposes of protection was to converse the privacy of authors. Although registration is prominent in current Indian copyright law, the country's basic idea is to safeguard authors without them requiring registration.

Since copyright laws safeguard expressions that are established in a tangible medium, the author is protected as soon as the work is registered in some physical form. The author's work is protected for sixty years even after his/her death according to the Copyright Act of 1957 (the Act). In the case of original dramatic, literary, artistic works, and musical, the sixty-year period starts from the years after the author's death.

• Copyrightable and Non-Copyrightable Works:

1. Are thoughts copyrightable?

Copyright is restricted for the expression of a thought or idea and does not go beyond the very idea, as per the courts. When the expressive elements of the work are seen as coextensive with the basic idea, the courts are uncertain to give protection. In the case, Baker v. Sheldon, the copyrightability of an accounting system was in issue. Since the defendants' account books were not arranged in the same way as the original author's, the court held that using the author's original ideas or principles per saw was not a violation. The court emphasized the difference between the work, or the book's main matter, and the depiction of the art, or its expression. Although the expression of the accounting system was copyrightable, the view behind it was not. Thus, the violation would have happened if the original author's form of account was copied word by word. All that had been acquired from the author was the art, or the idea, which is not safeguarded under copyright laws since the defendants' account books were organised distinctively.

The most basic question, in this case, was the copyrightability of the views or ideas. The idea or concept cannot be taken over since none can borrow it. Except for the protection from copying the original ideas of the system, the original author of a similar system of business or accounting process has very little protection.

2. The Scope of Copyrightable Subject Matter:

• The outlook of copyrightable subject matter is described by two fundamental principles:

• the utilitarian-non-utilitarian or function non-functional dichotomy, and

• the idea-expression dichotomy

The courts have time and now held that when the utilitarian principle and the non-utilitarian principle are indivisible, there can be no protection or, contrarily, that protection should not be wholly refused when they are indivisible.

When there are restricted methods to express a concept, the "doctrine of merger" is sometimes utilized to prevent copyrightability. The accessibility of serval sorts of relief, as well as the utilitarian-non-utilitarian dichotomies and idea-expression, will describe whether or not a work is secured. The possibility of patent or design patent protection, for illustration, may affect a court's judgement to refuse copyrightability. Although there is no legal restriction against circumstantial protection, the availability of other kinds of protection, for instance, maybe important to a court in determining where a particular work comes under functional-non-functional continuity.

3. Non-Copyrightable subject matter:

Since any actual work of authorship established intangible medium from which the expression can be copied is copyrightable under the Act, there are only a few words there that are not covered under it. However, one concept - tangible expressions remain strictly outside the scope of the Act. Choreography is the best example of this type of work. There is no law protecting a choreographer's creation of a series of movements or dances that is not translated to a physical or tangible medium of expression. However, there is no question that protection would be present if the choreographer films their work and documents it in choreographic notation.

• Remedies in case of infringement:

Anyone who reproduces a work without the author's or copyright owner's consent can be prosecuted for violation, which can result in attorney's fees, damages and even injunctive relief. Copyright protection gives the owner ownership over acquired works like movies, plays and other adaptations of the basic work, as well as the capability to sue for damages and injunctive relief against anybody who forms a substantially comparable work established on it.

1. Injunctive Relief:

Equitable relief is the traditional remedy for copyright violation. Both preliminary and permanent Injunctive relief is included. Although the rules consistent with preliminary release in copyright proceedings are not distinct that in other substantive sectors of law, preliminary relief has been examined to be prominently more probable than in other circumstances, specifically when compared to patent law. This can be explained in terms of evidentiary proof by the fact that proving valid copyright and violation at the pre-trial level is more efficient than proving analogous elements of other substantive infringements of law, such as patent violation.

Another explanation for the clear higher inclination to award preliminary equitable relief in copyright concerns than in other matters could be an ill-described presumption that copyright violation always endangers irrevocable injury. Since irremovable injury is usually needed for injunctive relief, such a presumption would make injunctions more general in copyright matters that would otherwise be expected.

2. Profits and Damages:

Monetary awards in copyright violation acts are classified into three kinds:

• Damages,

• Profits,

• Statutory damages.

A plaintiff was entitled to both profits and damages under the Act, which some courts elucidated to show that the plaintiff could recover both. A plaintiff should try to depict both monetary and actual damages. If the plaintiff has problems establishing actual damages or any part of them, the plaintiff has more possibility of winning a higher and more logical award if profits have been proved that do not overlap. Statutory damages are the third kind of monetary award that the plaintiff can ask for at any instant before the final decision.

3. Impoundment:

The Act admits for the seizure and last disposition of violating copies and the machinery used to make them, including probable devastation. As the last remedy, the confiscation or destruction of violating content may be an essential aspect of the plaintiff's aim. Impoundment before the final judgement, on the other hand, may be a more urgent goal. Certainly, in the situation of fleeting violators like fly-by-night paperback book publishers or record pirates, a plaintiff's urgent purpose may be the seizure of violating copies to prevent having to re-litigate the case every time the questionable contents occur.

• Is copyright violation a criminal offence in India?

Under the act, copyright violation can be also categorized as a criminal offence. Under section 63 of the Act, anybody who purposefully violated or aids in the infringement of the copyright in any work commissions to the criminal offence. A 6-month prison sentence and a fine of INR 50,000 are the minimum punishments for copyright violation.  A second and consequent conviction holds a minimum sentence of 1 year in prison and a fine of INR 1 lakh.

Any police officer, once believed that an offence in regards to the violation of the copyright in any work has been commissioned can seize without warrant all copies of the art and all devices/equipment used for the making violating copies of the work. All the copies that were taken, must be given in front of a magistrate. A police officer can take violating products without a warrant. The court may demand delivery to the owner of the copyright of all such copies.

The criminal provisions do admit vast remedies in terms of confiscation, seizure, and destruction, making their processes necessary rather than discretionary on conviction, and providing the court broader powers in regards to treating violations as contraband as usual.

 

Written by Parul Sharma