The rise in digital advancement & use of technology has increased the importance of intellectual property protection. The media & entertainment industry has shown tremendous growth from top the past few years in India.
Music & film industries are emerging as big markets globally. Independent Music Artists have become all the more famous. Major issues faced by the media joy industry are related to the illegal use of someone’s copyright. Mainly copyright disputes are related to copying of lyrics, songs, more. With artists being more vocal about such issues & the amendments being made in the act there have been some major developments to safeguard the rights of artists who create such original work.
Copyright plays a vital role in protecting the rights of the owner and preventing any unauthorized use. Whenever any movie releasing, you can see many local artist vending its pirated copy and it becomes available on many online piracy sites as well. This causes huge losses to the movie makers. The answer is to this problem copyright. The Copyright Act, 1957 has proved to be of massive help to the industry as authors can claim ownership in an original work by producing proof of registration. The Copyrights Act, 1957 protects the film and entertainment industry from illegal activities. The term of Copyright in published literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works in India is sixty years since the death of the author.
Copyright grants exclusive rights to the owner of an original works. Another important aspect of Copyright is that it only protects tangible expression of ideas and not the concepts, themes, ideas or historical facts. In other words, any original work to get protection under copyright laws must be fixed in a tangible or material form such as on a sheet of paper or canvas, lyrics of a song in the form of the music sheet, drawings of architectural design for a building, etc. The Copyright Act, 1957 gives the following rights to the author:
•Right to reproduce the work.
•Right to publish or broadcast the work.
•Right to perform the work in public.
•Right to display the work in public.
•Right to distribute copies of the work.
•Right to sale the work.
• Right to transfer his or her exclusive rights.
As mentioned above, copyright laws protect the original works from infringement, it is important to understand what constitutes violation of copyright the Court. Section 51 of the Copyright Act, 1957 deals with the infringement of copyrights. Unauthorized or illegal use of someone else’s copyright is copyright violation. It is the use of original and creative work of the owner, by someone else without the
owner’s permission. It is infringing the exclusive rights granted to the owner. To prove infringement, the copyright owner must prove that he/she is the owner of the copyright and his/ her rights in the copyright work have been infringed. Infringement of copyright is punishable under the Copyright Act, 1957.
