Nirmal Singh 3C Company Reviews The 5 Years Of Indian Copyright Amendment Bill, 2012

Indian Copyright Act, 1957 has gone some major amendments. In May 2012, both the houses of the Indian Parliament concertedly passed the Copyright Amendment Bill, 2012 bringing it at par with the World Intellectual Property Organization “Internet Treaties.” Most of the people present in the Parliament showed their support to the bill, the opposition in both the houses, and the representatives from other parties. 

The copyright Act had been amended 5 times before the final amendment act of 2012, once in the years 1983, 1984, 1992, 1994 and 1999 just to meet the international requirements. According to the sources at Nirmal Singh 3C Company, the Act has been considered a major step as it brought the act in conformity with “WIPO Internet Treaties” which involves WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). With the growth in the digital sector, it was necessary to extend their concern for safeguarding the online and digital environment.

The Act got a lot of positive review by everyone involved especially because of their provisions concerning the Music and Film Industry and special address to the concerns of the physically disabled persons.  But if we reflect on the five years of the act then there are many goods and bads, pass and fail regarding the Act. The other amendments than were introduced can be categorized as following:

1.       Artistic works, cinematograph films and sound recordings.

2.       WCT and WPPT

3.       Author- friendly amendments on mode of assignments and licenses

4.       Access to works

5.       Enforcing and protecting against Internet Piracy

6.       Reform of Copyright Board

Nirmal Singh 3C Company talks the 5 years of the Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012, listing both its success and the failures.

Success:

·         The amendments related to address the issue of the access to the published works by the physically disabled person, especially for visually impaired persons. This helped them influence the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate Access to the published Works to person with print disabilities, 2013, so as to adopt them at the international level. These exceptions allowed authorized entities like the educational institutions and NGOs working them to make formatted copies keeping them in consideration.

·         The amendments also clarify the performing rights of lyricists and music composers and giving them their right to receive 50% royalty collected by the copyright Society. The royalties are non- waivable and non- transferable. This came into consideration after the complaints of non-distribution of royalties to a few authors and composers after their dispute over rights in IPRS, copyright Society.

Fails:

The act had proposed constitution of a permanent Copyright Board instead of an ad-hoc body. It’s been 5 years since the implementation of the act but nothing has been formed.

The Finance Bill, 2017 proposes that the copyright Board is all set up to be merged with the Intellectual Property Appellate Board (IPAB) which will bring further amendments in the Act.