Shabana Azmi Talks About The Copyright Amendment Act At A Book
Monday, May 28, 2012
Analysis of the Indian Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 - Info Justice . Org
[Reposted from CIS-India.org] There are some welcome provisions in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012, and some worrisome provisions. Pranesh Prakash examines five positive changes, four negative ones, and notes the several missed opportunities. The larger concern, though, is that many important issues have not been addressed by these amendments, and how copyright policy is made without evidence and often out of touch with contemporary realities of the digital era.
The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, and will become law as soon as the President gives her assent and it is published in the Gazette of India. While we celebrate the passage of some progressive amendments to the Copyright Act, 1957 — including an excellent exception for persons with disabilities — we must keep in mind that there are some regressive amendments as well. In this blog post, I will try to highlight those provisions of the amendment that have not received much public attention (unlike the issue of lyricists’ and composers’ ‘right to royalty’).
Welcome Changes
Provisions for Persons with Disabilities
India now has amongst the most progressive exception for persons with disabilities, alongside countries like Chile. Under the amendments, sections 51(1)(zb) and 31B carve out exceptions and limitations for persons with disabilities. Earlier s.52(1)(zb) dealt only with formats that were “special designed only for the use of persons suffering from visual, aural, or other disabilities”. Thanks to a campaign mounted by disability rights groups and public interest groups such as CIS, it now covers “any accessible format”. Section 52(1)(zb) allows any person to facilitate access by persons with disabilities to copyrighted works without any payment of compensation to the copyright holder, and any organization working the benefit of persons with disabilities to do so as long as it is done on a non-profit basis and with reasonable steps being taken to prevent entry of reproductions of the copyrighted work into the mainstream. Even for-profit businesses are allowed to do so if they obtain a compulsory licence on a work-by-work basis, and pay the royalties fixed by the Copyright Board. The onerousness of this provision puts its utility into question, and this won’t disappear unless the expression “work” in s.31B is read to include a class of works.
Given that the Delhi High Court has — wrongly and per incuriam, since it did not refer to s.14(a)(ii) as it was amended in 1994 — held parallel importation to be barred by the Copyright Act, it was important for Parliament to clarify that the Copyright Act in fact follows international exhaustion. Without this, even if any person can facilitate access for persons with disabilities to copyrighted works, those works are restricted to those that are circulated in India. Given that not many books are converted into accessible formats in India (not to mention the costs of doing so), and given the much larger budgets for book conversion in the developed world, this is truly restrictive.
Extension of Fair Dealing to All Works
The law earlier dealt with fair dealing rights with regard to “literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works”. Now it covers all works (except software), in effect covering sound recordings and video as well. This will help make personal copies of songs and films, to make copies for research, to use film clips in classrooms, etc.
Creative Commons, Open Licensing Get a Boost
The little-known s.21 of the Copyright Act, which deals with the right of authors to relinquish copyright, has been amended. While earlier one could only relinquish parts of one’s copyright by submitting a form to the Registrar of Copyrights, now a simple public notice suffices. Additionally, s.30 of the Act, which required licences to be in writing and signed, now only requires it to be in writing. This puts Creative Commons, the GNU Public Licence, and other open licensing models, on a much surer footing in India.
Physical Libraries Should Celebrate, Perhaps Virtual Libraries Too
Everywhere that the word “hire” occurs (except s.51, curiously), the word “commercial rental” has been substituted. This has been done, seemingly, to bring India in conformance with the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). The welcome side-effect of this is that the legality of lending by non-profit public libraries has been clarified. The amendment states:
“2(1)(fa) “commercial rental” does not include the rental, lease or lending of a lawfully acquired copy of a computer programme, sound recording, visual recording or cinematograph film for non-profit purposes by a non-profit library or non-profit educational institution.”
Even after this, the overwhelming majority of the ‘video lending libraries’ that you see in Indian cities and towns continue to remain illegal.
Another welcome provision is the amended s.52(1)(n), which now allows “non-commercial public libraries” to store an electronic copy of a work if it already has a physical copy of the work. However, given that this provision says that the storage shall be “for preservation”, it seems limited. However, libraries might be able to use this — in conjunction with the fact that under s.14 of the Copyright Act lending rights of authors is limited to “commercial rental” and s.51(b) only covers lending of “infringing copies” — to argue that they can legally scan and lend electronic copies of works in the same manner that they lend physical copies. Whether this argument would succeed is unclear. Thus, India has not boldly gone where the European Commission is treading with talks of a European Digital Library Project, or where scholars in the US are headed with the Digital Public Library of America. But we might have gone there quietly. Thus, this amendment might help foster an Indian Internet Archive, or help spread the idea of the Open Library in India.
On a final note, different phrases are used to refer to libraries in the amendment. In s.2(1)(fa), it talks about “non-profit library”; in s.52(1)(n) and (o), it refers to “non-commercial public library”; and in s.52(1)(zb), it talks of “library or archives”, but s.52(1)(zb) also requires that the works be made available on a “non-profit basis”. The differentiation, if any, that is sought to be drawn between these is unclear.
Limited Protection to Some Internet Intermediaries
There are two new provisions, s.52(1)(b) and 52(1)(c), which provide some degree of protection to ‘transient or incidental’ storage of a work or performance. Section 52(1)(b) allows for “the transient or incidental storage of a work or performance purely in the technical process of electronic transmission or communication to the public”, hence applying primarily to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), VPN providers, etc. Section 52(1)(c) allows for “transient or incidental storage of a work or performance for the purpose of providing electronic links, access or integration, where such links, access or integration has not been expressly prohibited by the right holder, unless the person responsible is aware or has reasonable grounds for believing that such storage is of an infringing copy”. This seems to make it applicable primarily to search engines, with other kinds of online services being covered or not covered depending on one’s interpretation of the word ‘incidental’.
Compulsory Licensing Now Applies to Foreign Works Also
Sections 31 (“compulsory licence in works withheld from public”) and 31A (“compulsory licence in unpublished Indian works”) used to apply to Indian works. Now they apply to all works, whether Indian or not (and now s.31A is about “compulsory licence in unpublished or published works”, mainly orphan works). This is a welcome amendment, making foreign works capable of being licensed compulsorily in case it is published elsewhere but withheld in India. Given how onerous our compulsory licensing sections are, especially sections 32 and 32A (which deal with translations, and with literary, scientific or artistic works), it is not a surprise that they have not been used even once. However, given the modifications to s.31 and s.31A, we might just see those starting to be used by publishers, and not just radio broadcasters.
Worrisome Changes
Term of Copyright for Photographs Nearly Doubled
The term of copyright for photographs has now gone from sixty years from publication to sixty years from the death of the photographer. This would mean that copyright in a photograph clicked today (2012) by a 20 year old who dies at the 80 will only expire on January 1, 2133. This applies not only to artistic photographs, to all photographs because copyright is an opt-out system, not an opt-in system. Quite obviously, most photoshopping is illegal under copyright law.
This has three problems. First, there was no case made out for why this term needed to be increased. No socio-economic report was commissioned on the effects of such a term increase. This clause was not even examined by the Parliamentary Standing Committee. While the WCT requires a ‘life + 50′ years term for photographs, we are not signatories to the WCT, and hence have no obligation to enforce this. We are signatories to the Berne Convention and the TRIPS Agreement, which require a copyright term of 25 years for photographs. Instead, we have gone even above the WCT requirement and provide a life + 60 years term.
The second problem is that it is easier to say when a photograph was published than to say who the photographer was and when that photographer died. Even when you are the subject of a photograph, the copyright in the photograph belongs to the photographer. Unless a photograph was made under an employment contract or the photographer assigned copyright to you, you do not own the copyright in the photographs. In other words, if the photographer was an independent contractor, such as a self-employed person who was commissioned to click the photographs for a fee, the copyright in the photograph lie with the photographer and not the person who commissioned the photographs. This will most definitely harm projects like Wikipedia, and other projects that aim at archiving and making historical photographs available publicly.
Cover Versions Made More Difficult: Kolaveri Di Singers Remain Criminals
The present amendments have brought about the following changes, which make it more difficult to produce cover versions:
- Time period after which a cover version can be made has increased from 2 years to 5 years.
- Requirement of same medium as the original. So if the original is on a cassette, the cover cannot be released on a CD.
- Payment has to be made in advance, and for a minimum of 50000 copies. This can be lowered by Copyright Board having regard to unpopular dialects.
- While earlier it was prohibited to mislead the public (i.e., pretend the cover was the original, or endorsed by the original artists), now cover versions are not allowed to “contain the name or depict in any way any performer of an earlier sound recording of the same work or any cinematograph film in which such sound recording was incorporated”.
- All cover versions must state that they are cover versions.
- No alterations are allowed from the original song, and alteration is qualified as ‘alteration in the literary or musical work’. So no imaginative covers in which the lyrics are changed or in which the music is reworked are allowed without the copyright owners’ permission. Only note-for-note and word-for-word covers are allowed.
- Alterations were allowed if they were “reasonably necessary for the adaptation of the work” now they are only allowed if it is “technically necessary for the purpose of making of the sound recording”.
This ignores present-day realities. Kolaveri Di was covered numerous times without permission, and each one of those illegal acts helped spread its popularity. The singers and producers of those unlicensed versions could be jailed under the current India Copyright Act, which allows even non-commercial copyright infringers to be put behind bars. Film producers and music companies want both the audience reach that comes from less stringent copyright laws (and things like cover versions), as well as the ability to prosecute that same behaviour at will. It is indeed ironic that T-Series, the company that broke HMV’s stranglehold over the Indian recording market thanks to cover versions, is itself one of the main movers behind ever-more stringent copyright laws.
Digital Locks Now Provided Legal Protection Without Accountability
As I have covered the issue of Technological Protection Measures (TPM) and Rights Management Information (RMI), which are ‘digital locks’ also known as Digital Rights Management (DRM), in great detail earlier, I won’t repeat the arguments at length. Very briefly:
- It is unclear that anyone has been demanding the grant of legal protection to DRMs in India, and We have no obligation under any international treaties to do so. It is not clear how DRM will help authors and artists, but it is clear how it will harm users.
- While the TPM and RMI provisions are much more balanced than the equivalent provisions in laws like the US’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMC), that isn’t saying much. Importantly, while users are given certain rights to break the digital locks, they are helpless if they aren’t also provided the technological means of doing so. Simply put: music and movie companies have rights to place digital locks, and under some limited circumstances users have the right to break them. But if the locks are difficult to break, the users have no choice but to live with the lock, despite having a legal right.
Removal of Parallel Importation
In past blog posts I have covered why allowing parallel imports makes sense in India. And as explained above, the Delhi High Court acted per incuriam when holding that the Copyright Act does not allow parallel importation. The Copyright Act only prohibits import of infringing copies of a work, and a copy of a book that has been legally sold in a foreign country is not an “infringing copy”. The government was set to introduce a provision making it clear that parallel importation was allowed. The Parliamentary Standing Committee heard objections to this proposal from a foreign publishers’ association, but decided to recommend the retention of the clause. Still, due to pressure from a few publishing companies whose business relies on monopolies over importation of works into India, the government has decided to delete the provision. However, thankfully, the HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal, has assured both houses of Parliament that he will move a further amendment if an NCAER report he has commissioned (which will be out by August or September) recommends the introduction of parallel imports.
Expansion of Moral Rights Without Safeguards
Changes have been made to author’s moral rights (and performer’s moral rights have been introduced) but these have been made without adequate safeguards. The changes might allow the legal heir of an author, artist, etc., to object to ‘distortion, mutilation, modification, or other act’ of her ancestors work even when the ancestor might not have. By this amendment, this right continues in perpetuity, even after the original creator dies and even after the work enters into the public domain. It seems Indian policymakers had not heard of Stephen Joyce, the grandson of James Joyce, who has “brought numerous lawsuits or threats of legal action against scholars, biographers and artists attempting to quote from Joyce’s literary work or personal correspondence”. Quoting from his Wikipedia page:
In 2004, Stephen threatened legal action against the Irish government when the Rejoyce Dublin 2004 festival proposed public reading of excerpts of Ulysses on Bloomsday. In 1988 Stephen Joyce burnt a collection of letters written by Lucia Joyce, his aunt. In 1989 he forced Brenda Maddox to delete a postscript concerning Lucia from her biography Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom. After 1995 Stephen announced no permissions would be granted to quote from his grandfather’s work. Libraries holding letters by Joyce were unable to show them without permission. Versions of his work online were disallowed. Stephen claimed to be protecting his grandfather’s and families reputation, but would sometimes grant permission to use material in exchange for fees that were often “extortionate”.
Because in countries like the UK and Canada the works of James Joyce are now in the public domain, Stephen Joyce can no longer restrict apply such conditions. However now, in India, despite James Joyce’s works being in the public domain, Stephen Joyce’s indefensible demands may well carry legal weight.
Backdoor Censorship
As noted above, the provision that safeguard Internet intermediaries (like search engines) is very limited. However, that provision has an extensive removal provision:
Provided that if the person responsible for the storage of the copy has received a written complaint from the owner of copyright in the work, complaining that such transient or incidental storage is an infringement, such person responsible for the storage shall refrain from facilitating such access for a period of twenty-one days or till he receives an order from the competent court refraining from facilitating access and in case no such order is received before the expiry of such period of twenty-one days, he may continue to provide the facility of such access;
There are two things to be noted here. First, that without proof (or negative consequences for false complaints) the service provider is mandated to prevent access to the copy for 21 day. Second, after the elapsing of 21 days, the service provider may ‘put back’ the content, but is not mandated to do so. This would allow people to file multiple frivolous complaints against any kind of material, even falsely (since there is no penalty for false compalaints), and keep some material permanently censored.
Missed Opportunities
Fair Dealing Guidelines, Criminal Provisions, Government Works, and Other Missed Opportunities
The following important changes should have been made by the government, but haven’t. While on some issues the Standing Committee has gone beyond the proposed amendments, it has not touched upon any of the following, which we believe are very important changes that are required to be made.
- Criminal provisions: Our law still criminalises individual, non-commercial copyright infringement. This has now been extended to the proposal for circumvention of Technological Protection Measures and removal of Rights Management Information also.
- Fair dealing guidelines: We would benefit greatly if, apart from the specific exceptions provided for in the Act, more general guidelines were also provided as to what do not constitute infringement. This would not take away from the existing exceptions, but would act as a more general framework for those cases which are not covered by the specific exceptions.
- Government works: Taxpayers are still not free to use works that were paid for by them. This goes against the direction that India has elected to march towards with the Right to Information Act. A simple amendment of s.52(1)(q) would suffice. The amended subsection could simply allow for “the reproduction, communication to the public, or publication of any government work” as being non-infringing uses.
- Copyright terms: The duration of all copyrights are above the minimum required by our international obligations, thus decreasing the public domain which is crucial for all scientific and cultural progress.
- Educational exceptions: The exceptions for education still do not fully embrace distance and digital education.
- Communication to the public: No clear definition is given of what constitute a ‘public’, and no distinction is drawn between commercial and non-commercial ‘public’ communication.
- Internet intermediaries: More protections are required to be granted to Internet intermediaries to ensure that non-market based peer-production projects such as Wikipedia, and other forms of social media and grassroots innovation are not stifled. Importantly, after the terrible judgment passed by Justice Manmohan Singh of the Delhi High Court in the Super Cassettes v. Myspace case, any website hosting user-generated content is vulnerable to payment of hefty damages even if it removes content speedily on the basis of complaints.
Amendments Not Examined
For the sake of brevity, I have not examined the major changes that have been made with regard to copyright societies, lyricists and composers, and statutory licensing for broadcasters, all of which have received considerable attention by copyright experts elsewhere, nor have I examined many minor amendments.
A Note on the Parliamentary Process
Much of the discussions around the Copyright Act have been around the rights of composers and lyricists vis-à-vis producers. As this has been covered elsewhere, I won’t comment much on it, other than to say that it is quite unfortunate that the trees are lost for the forest. It is indeed a good thing that lyricists and composers are being provided additional protection against producers who are usually in a more advantageous bargaining position. This fact came out well in both houses of Parliament during the debate on the Copyright Bill.
However, the mechanism of providing this protection — by preventing assignment of “the right to receive royalties”, though the “right to receive royalties” is never mentioned as a separate right anywhere else in the Copyright Act — was not critically examined by any of the MPs who spoke. What about the unintended consequences of such an amendment? Might this not lead to new contracts where instead of lump-sums, lyricists and music composers might instead be asked to bear the risk of not earning anything at all unless the film is profitable? What about a situation where a producer asks a lyricist to first assign all rights (including royalty rights) to her heirs and then enters into a contract with those heirs? The law, unfortunately at times, revolves around words used by the legislature and not just the intent of the legislature. While one cannot predict which way the amendment will go, one would have expected better discussions around this in Parliament.
Much of the discussion (in both the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha) was rhetoric about the wonders of famous Indian songwriters and music composers and the abject penury in which some not-so-famous ones live, and there was very little discussion about the actual merits of the content of the Bill in terms of how this problem will be overcome. A few MPs did deal with issues of substance. Some asked the HRD Minister tough questions about the Statement of Objects and Reasons noting that amendments have been brought about to comply with the WCT and WPPT which were “adopted … by consensus”, even though this is false as India is not a signatory to the WCT and WPPT. MP P. Rajeeve further raised the issue of parallel imports and that of there being no public demand for including TPM in the Act, but that being a reaction to the US’s flawed Special 301 reports. Many, however, spoke about issues such as the non-award of the Bharat Ratna to Bhupen Hazarika, about the need to tackle plagiarism, and how the real wealth of a country is not material wealth but intellectual wealth.
This preponderance of rhetoric over content is not new when it comes to copyright policy in India. In 1991, when an amendment was presented to increase term of copyright in all works by ten years (from expiring 50 years from the author’s death to 60 years post-mortem), the vast majority of the Parliamentarians who stood up to speak on the issue waxed eloquent about the greatness of Rabindranath Tagore (whose works were about to lapse into the public domain), and how we must protect his works. Little did they reflect that extending copyright — for all works, whether by Tagore or not — will not help ‘protect’ the great Bengali artist, but would only make his (and all) works costlier for 10 additional years. Good-quality and cheaper editions of Tagore’s works are more easily available post-2001 (when his copyright finally lapsed) than before, since companies like Rupa could produce cheap editions without seeking a licence from Visva Bharati. And last I checked Tagore’s works have not been sullied by them having passed into the public domain in 2001.
Further, one could find outright mistakes in the assertions of Parliamentarians. In both Houses, DMK MPs raised objections with regard to parallel importation being allowed in the Bill — only in the version of the Bill they were debating, parallel importation was not being allowed. One MP stated that “statutory licensing provisions like these are not found anywhere else in the world”. This is incorrect, given that there are extensive statutory licensing provision in countries like the United States, covering a variety of situations, from transmission of sound recordings over Internet radio to secondary transmission of the over-the-air programming.
Unfortunately, though that MP did not raise this issue, there is a larger problem that underlies copyright policymaking in India, and that is the fact that there is no impartial evidence gathered and no proper studies that are done before making of policies. We have no equivalent of the Hargreaves Report or the Gowers Report, or the studies by the Productivity Council in Australia or the New Zealand government study of parallel importation.
There was no economic analysis conducted of the effect of the increase in copyright term for photographs. We have evidence from elsewhere that copyright terms are already too long, and all increases in term are what economists refer to as deadweight losses. There is no justification whatsoever for increasing term of copyright for photographs, since India is not even a signatory to the WCT (which requires this term increase). In fact, we have lost precious negotiation space internationally since in bilateral trade agreements we have been asked to bring our laws in compliance with the WCT, and we have asked for other conditions in return. By unilaterally bringing ourselves in compliance with WCT, we have lost important bargaining power.
Users and Smaller Creators Left Out of Discussions
Thankfully, the Parliamentary Standing Committee went into these minutiae in greater detail. Though, as I have noted elsewhere, the Parliamentary Standing Committee did not invite any non-industry groups for deposition before it, other than the disability rights groups which had campaigned really hard. So while changes that would affect libraries were included, not a single librarian was called by the Standing Committee. Despite comments having been submitted to the Standing Committee on behalf of 22 civil society organizations, none of those organizations were asked to depose. Importantly, non-industry users of copyrighted materials — consumers, historians, teachers, students, documentary film-makers, RTI activists, independent publishers, and people like you and I — are not seen as legitimate interested parties in the copyright debate. This is amply clear from the the fact that only one MP each in the two houses of Parliament raised the issue of users’ rights at all.
Concluding Thoughts
What stands out most from this process of amendment of the copyright law, which has been going on since 2006, is how out-of-touch the law is with current cultural practices. Most instances of photoshopping are illegal. Goodbye Lolcats. Cover versions (for which payments have to be made) have to wait for five years. Goodbye Kolaveri Di. Do you own the jokes you e-mail to others, and have you taken licences for quoting older e-mails in your replies? Goodbye e-mail. The strict laws of copyright, with a limited set of exceptions, just do not fit the digital era where everything digital transaction results in a bytes being copied. We need to take a much more thoughtful approach to rationalizing copyright: introduction of general fair dealing guidelines, reduction of copyright term, decriminalization of non-commercial infringement, and other such measures. If we don’t take such measures soon, we will all have to be prepared to be treated as criminals for all our lives. Breaking copyright law shouldn’t be as easy as breathing, yet thanks to outdated laws, it is.
Article Link
Copyright on consensus - House unity on Akhtar bill - the Telegraph
Copyright on consensus - House unity on Akhtar bill - 17th May
| OUR BUREAU | |||
New Delhi, May 17: Bollywood veterans and political pragmatists closed ranks today to pass a bill that is aimed at ensuring royalty for creative contributors such as lyricists, scriptwriters and singers.
The Copyright (Amendment) Bill, which was pursued with messianic zeal by poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar, was passed by the Rajya Sabha today with the support of a cast featuring Jaya Bachchan, BJP’s Arun Jaitley, Congress’s Kapil Sibal and Left members.
The much-delayed bill aims to align Indian copyright laws with international rules and introduce a system of statutory licensing to protect the owners of literary and musical works.
Once the law is promulgated, those who use a film’s dialogues or songs for commercial purposes, such as in advertisements, will have to pay a fee to the scriptwriter, the music director and the lyricist. They will also earn royalty every time the film is screened on a television channel. So far, only the copyright holder — usually the producer or a company — was eligible for the fee.
Akhtar himself was recently sucked into a related controversy when a proposal came for remakingZanjeer, the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer that was part-scripted by the poet-lyricist. He later resolved the issue amicably with the producer.
Akhtar played an important role in lobbying all political parties to ensure the passage of the bill. However, until now, the BJP was not positively disposed towards the legislation and had not allowed it to be introduced in the Rajya Sabha.
While the Lok Sabha passed the bill in the monsoon session last year, it was blocked in the Rajya Sabha in December when Opposition members alleged “conflict of interest”, saying minister Sibal’s lawyer-son represented an audio company.
Some parties had said the objections were intended at helping big business — an indirect way of insisting the underground piracy economy should not be meddled with.
Several others had tilted more towards the owners of the copyright than the original creators of the literary or musical works.
But today, all political parties, including the BJP, voted for the bill. Not all BJP members were happy supporting it, though.
Sources said it was Akhtar’s forceful advocacy of the bill with leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley, who sat through the discussion, that worked.
In the Congress, Sibal went on the frontfoot by piloting the bill without depending on the government’s floor managers, sources said. He reached out to Samajwadi and BSP leaders as well as Mamata Banerjee and Jaitley. BJP sources said Jaitley made up his mind to support the bill on the “issue of principles”. So did the Left parties.
The respect Akhtar enjoyed made a difference. Akhtar had been straining every nerve to get the amendments legislated. “I have seldom seen this degree of emotional involvement with a bill,” a Congress source said.
BJP member Prakash Javadekar, too, played a key role. Javadekar was a member of the HRD standing committee that vetted the original draft bill and he made it a point to attend each of the 15 meetings that lasted over 60 hours.
A committee source said: “The bill was overhauled. Of the 19 recommendations we made, the minister (Kapil Sibal) accepted 17.”
Javadekar said the bill was an example of the hard work parliamentary standing committees did in the law-making process, an effort that is seldom appreciated.
Akhtar initiated the discussion. He said music companies controlled the rights of a song, and its creators, such as musicians and songwriters, did not earn any money from a song’s commercial success. “Music company dictates terms to even noted musicians like A.R. Rahman and others,” Akhtar said.
Jaya, who has been in the limelight this week because of the entry of Rekha into the Rajya Sabha, highlighted the widespread menace of music piracy. She hoped the bill would address the issue. She stressed that everybody associated with creation of a film song should be rewarded as these are “created collectively”.
Nobody is saying the bill is perfect, though many applauded the consensus-driven initiative.
Replying to the debate, Sibal said a clause for giving royalty to the principal director of a film had been dropped in keeping with the suggestion of the parliamentary standing committee. “We wanted to actually give this right over royalty to principal director. He is perhaps the principal creator. But there was a feeling expressed by the parliamentary standing committee that the time is not ripe to give that right. So, we are dropping it,” he said.
Sibal’s individual out reach to the Opposition, the Samajwadi and the BSP in this session has resulted in the passage of five HRD bills.
On Monday, the penultimate day of the budget session, he is hoping to get the National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational Institutions Bill through in the Lok Sabha, mainly with the BJP's help. Sources said Sibal spoke several times to BJP’s Lok Sabha Opposition leader Sushma Swaraj.
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Copyright (amendment) Bill 2012: Smt. Sushma Swaraj: 22.05.2012
CopyrightAmendment Bill 2012 , Smt. Sushma Swaraj addressing at Rajya sabha - 22 /5/12
Javed Akhtar all praise for Copyright Amendment Bill - Times of india - 20/5/12
Javed Akhtar all praise for Copyright Amendment Bill
Iti Shree Misra, TNN May 20, 2012, 12.00AM IST
Writer, poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar says it's a remarkably happy day for the writers, singers and lyricists of India. The Rajya Sabha finally passed the proposed amendments in the original Indian Copyright Bill enacted in 1957. Some of the core points reflected in the Copyright Amendment Bill include the right of author and music composer, right to the visually impaired, extending compulsory regime to unpublished work and imposition of punitive actions.
(Javed Akhtar More Pics)
So, does he feel vindicated? "Of course, I feel vindicated. It's nearly been a two-year long struggle. Yeh bahut hi progressive aur important step hai Hindustan ke artistes, writers, singers, scriptwriters aur lyricists ke liye. We had been protesting for long against the gross exploitation of the artistes," he says.
But is he satisfied with the present amendments? "Yes, we are all very satisfied with the amendments that have been made. Now our creations will be non-assignable. We will sell the rights. Right now, we sell our compositions to the production house and they re-sell it to music companies, cellphone companies as ring tones, ads and use it wherever they can. In return, we, the creators of that song, music, tune, we don't get anything. But now, hopefully, those rights will lie with us. Now our words, songs, stories, tunes, will be ours and ours only in the legal terms. Even in the present law, we have a share but we are shortchanged by production houses and music companies. We can claim the royalties they earn from such dealings legally and also on our own," he explains.
Actress and RS member Jaya Bachchan hoped the bill would address the issue of music piracy. She stressed that everybody associated with creation of a film song should be rewarded as these are "created collectively".
Article Link
Stop creating confusion over copyright issue: Shabana - Times of India - 19/5/12
Stop creating confusion over copyright issue: Shabana
IANS May 19, 2012, 05.26PM IST
Veteran actress Shabana Azmi feels that people are creating confusion over the share of profits earned by music directors and lyricists on their work, as proposed in the copyright amendment bill.
"Because of the copyright act, great musicians like O.P. Nayyar, who lived in bad conditions, in a bad house, will get a royalty. Many people (filmmakers) are trying to confuse the issue and are saying: 'If a film does not do well, will you deduct your fees'," said Shabana.
(Shabana AzmiMore Pics )
Shabana's husband and veteran lyricist Javed Akhtar has been successful at pushing for an amendment in the copyright laws to give music directors and lyricists a share of the profits earned on their work.
The amendment to the copyright act was passed by the Rajya Sabha Thursday and will now go to the Lok Sabha.
The actress clarified: "The royalty is not being demanded for the film. It is being demanded for the times the song will be exploited outside the film," she explained.
Article Link
Landmark Copyright Amendment Bill Passed by Rajya Sabha - Indian West.com
Landmark Copyright Amendment Bill Passed by Rajya Sabha
- R. M. Vijayakar, Special to India-West
- May 21, 2012
Javed Akhtar played a key role in mobilizing support for the new Copyright Bill. (PTI file photo)
UMBAI, India
The much overdue Copyright Bill, providing for vital amendments to the Copyright Act, was approved by the Rajya Sabha, India’s Upper House of Parliament, on May 17. The bill will remove operational difficulties and address newer issues related to the digital world and Internet as well as any new technology that might come in the future.
The Copyright Amendment Bill, 2010, moved by Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal, also seeks to bring Indian laws originally enacted in 1957 in conformity with international norms and the World Intellectual Property Organization, NDTV.com reported on its website May 17.
Sibal said a clause with a provision of giving royalty to the principal director of a film has been dropped in keeping with the suggestion of the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
“We wanted to actually give this right over royalty to the director. He is perhaps principal creator. But there was a feeling expressed by Parliamentary Standing Committee that time is not ripe to give that right. So, we are dropping (it),” he said.
Initiating the discussion, lyricist-writer and poet Javed Akhtar, who has been relentlessly spearheading the cause at the expense of being blacklisted by major filmmakers and music companies, said that companies have all rights over songs and the writers and singers do not get much from the commercial success. His 20 minute speech was a masterpiece of impromptu speaking, clearly indicating his wholehearted passion for the just cause and the facts that were clearly at his fingertips.
“Music companies dictates terms to even noted musicians like A.R. Rahman and others,” Akhtar said. Film actress and Samajwadi Party member Jaya Bachchan talked about widespread prevalence of piracy and urged the bill to address the issue. Supporting the bill, she said all those associated with the creation of a song of film should be rewarded as these are “created collectively.” The HRD Minister said the piracy issue has been dealt with properly in the bill.
Said Sibal, “We are in the midst of new era, which I call digital era. In this digital era, the nature of rights of stakeholders needs to be looked afresh. As technology develops, we need to understand complexities and ensure that key stakeholders' rights are protected and can take the benefit of the digital era.”
The minister stated that work of dubbing artistes would be protected by the act. Singers too will have a moral right over the song as per the Amendment and will be entitled to a sum that can be later worked out with the producers of a film.
Ravishankar Prasad (BJP), Shantaram Naik (Congress), S.P. Singh Baghel (BSP), N.K. Singh (JD-U), Tiruchi Siva (DMK), M.P. Achuthan (CPI), Prabha Thakur (Congress) and Bharatkumar Raut (Shiv Sena) also participated in the debate. The bill was passed unanimously – an unprecedented event given the powerful lobbies working against it and making their representations before the PSC. The passing of the bill by the Lok Sabha, or Lower House, is a technical formality now because of the support given by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, opposition leader and former Information & Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj and Sonia Gandhi, as well as the Third Front and Left parties.
Sonu Niigaam, Kailash Kher, Shabana Azmi and Rohit Roy have hailed veteran writer Javed Akhtar for his efforts in getting the Bill through. Akhtar's wife Shabana was ecstatic.
“Hurrah copyright amendment bill passed in Rajya Sabha. Javed's historic moment to give lyricists, composers 12 percent of their rightful share,” she tweeted.
In a message to India-West on May 17, she said, “This legislation is historic and changes the course of music artistes and lyricists.”
Sonu Niigaam wrote: “Copyright act passed by the Rajya Sabha... For not just the composers and lyrics writer but singers too. Congratulations. Kudos @Javedakhtarjadu (Akhtar’s Twitter handle).”
“Javed Akhtar is a real hero for fighting for all creative people. We are blessed to see the change and people behind it. Finally copyright is and will be defined in real now in our country, congratulations to all intellectual property owners, finally you are protected,” tweeted Kailash Kher.
"Copyright bill passed... Congrats Javed saab... All you efforts paid off," tweeted Rohit Roy, actor, while Ehsaan Noorani of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy wrote: "@Javedakhtarjadu stellar speech in the RS! Many Congratulations on the bill being passed."
In an SMS, Himesh Reshammiya said: “It’s the best thing that has happened to the music industry and the credit goes to Javed-saab.”
“Now in the true sense, creative people will derive some commercial benefit from the popularity of a song among others who are also provided with certain rights for their creation” said composer Pritam.
While producer Farhan Akhtar (technically a member of the fraternity opposing the amendment) placed the YouTube link to father Javed Akhtar’s near 20-minute speech on Twitter, Raju Singh, a composer closely involved with the cause stated, “Well, it has finally happened, and the law will be soon passed. It’s new for our industry despite being an international norm, and we must sit together and understand the common good that’s going to come out of it for all of us.”
Agrees lyricist Sameer, “This was overdue for decades, but at least it has happened now, like the Mumbai Metro being built a 100 years after London’s! This was a battle for our rights. Weirdly, the greatest benefactors are not the music people who cannot sign away their 12.5 percent royalty but the producers who do not realize that they will benefit even more than us. They are protesting and resorting to lame statements and gimmicks without having a clue about how they will legally benefit and be prevented from being taken for a ride by music companies.
Producer Mukesh Bhatt’s statement in a tabloid about Javed-saab being a Tansen to Kapil Sibal’s Akbar is a farcical statement that shows only his ignorance and the fact that the filmmaking fraternity is opposing us for the sake of it and not because of valid issues. Why single out Javed-saab, when the ruling party and the enter opposition has come together on one issue?”
‘Explaining’ (sic) why producers are against the amendment, Bhatt had said, “We were never against the concept of royalty per se. Our bone of contention was simply that royalty should not be given from day one. Instead, it should be given after two years. We still think that way because one needs to understand that production and publicity costs have escalated in modern times. Let the producers recover that, say for two years or so. Only then royalty should come into effect.”
Producer Pahlaj Nihalani even stated, “However, it has been passed only in the Rajya Sabha so far. Let’s see what happens in the Lok Sabha,” he said, adding, “I fail to understand why if singers, composers and writers want to enjoy the profits, they can’t bear the losses as well. After all, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.”
Predictably, the music companies are also seeing red and have brought up issues like a section of the act named 31-D, which Javed Akhtar stated is nothing new or valid. Neeraj Kalyan, president, Super Cassettes Industries Ltd. (T-Series), told Mumbai Mirror: “The amendment could have been a welcome step if the filmmaker’s representations were heard. The filmmakers believe that the committee has pre-judged the issue before making its report. It is therefore felt that some of the amendments will – in no uncertain terms – jeopardize the interest of not only the filmmakers who invest heavily in the making of films but also many of the upcoming talent including new authors, music composers, depriving them of opportunity to showcase their talent, create mass unemployment within the film industry, and result in an inevitable breakdown of the entire film and music industry.”
“The producers’ arguments are absurd, detailing how much they spend on recording, filming and promoting songs,” said Akhtar. “But we are not shareholders in the film and we are not asking for a share of their income from films, but from a song as used outside the film! They are not paying us from their own pockets or revenues from the movies they make. When this is the law worldwide, even in Hollywood, why and how can they loot us here?”
He pointed out that the amendment will benefit music creators across genres and Indian provinces as well as writers of all kinds, including scriptwriters. The lyricist especially praised Swaraj, who went out of her way to write letters to several musicians and lyricists and assure them that she would help see the bill through.
“She came out strongly in support of us. Her letter was also received by lyricist Abhilash, who despite writing ‘Itni shakti hamein dena daata’ in the 1985 film ‘Ankush,’ lives in a slum! Its composer Kuldip Singh and Abhilash were among the small-timers Swaraj wrote to after taking the trouble to locate their addresses. The song, from which neither of its creators nor filmmaker N. Chandra earned, has made a fortune for the music label, first from the album sales and other airings, and now as the ringtone/caller-tune of over 1.5 crore mobile users, besides being sung in schools! And please, this is not my victory. This is a victory of right over wrong.”
Article link
http://www.indiawest.com/news/4592-landmark-copyright-amendment-bill-passed-by-rajya-sabha.html Saturday, May 26, 2012
Did Sibal just get arm-twisted by book publishers? - First Post India .com - 25/5/12
Did Sibal just get arm-twisted by book publishers?
by FP Staff May 25, 2012
The publishing industry seems to have got the better of the Human Resources Development Minister Kapil Sibal.
The move to open up the market for distribution of international books to competition has been successfully thwarted with the removal of an amendment allowing parallel imports from the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2012 that was passed by the Lok Sabha on 22 May.
This despite the Parliamentary Standing Committee supporting the amendment on the grounds that it will increase student access to books.
Allowing parallel imports, argues the author, will dismantle distribution monopoly rights. PIB
But it could well only be a temporary victory for the publishing giants with Sibal promising to restore the amendment if the National Council of Applied Economic Research – to which the matter has been referred – should in its report (expected in August) recommend parallel imports.
The draft bill (which included the amendment) had created a furore in publishing circles last year. Parallel imports, claimed leading publishing houses, would destroy the industry.Read Thomas Abraham’s Death of Books published last year in The Hindustan Times.
While that remains open for debate, there is no denying the larger common good of faster and cheaper availability of books to millions of students that parallel imports will make possible. Ordering books may no longer be a click away if Flipkart had to take permission from the Indian copyright owner every time you ordered an international title.
In an article titled Why Parallel Importation of Books should be Allowed published by The Centre for Internet and Society Pranesh Prakash makes a compelling case for ending the distribution monopoly.
Underlying the huge benefit to students, the author says “Currently a large percentage of educational books in India are imported, but with different companies having monopoly rights in importation of different books. If this was opened up to competition, the prices of books would drop, since one would not need to get an authorisation to import books—the licence raj that currently exists would be dismantled—and Indian students will benefit.
“This is especially important for students and for libraries because even when low-priced editions are available, they are often of older editions.”
The article also argues how the business model of hugely popular site such as Flipkart depends on parallel imports to deliver books to its customers at great bargains.
Allowing parallel imports, argues the author, will dismantle distribution monopoly rights and help book publishers, libraries, the print-disabled and consumers in general. He also makes the important distinction between the black market and parallel imports, which is legal.
Offering a point-by-point rebuttal of the publishing industry’s claims of the destructive impact of parallel imports, the author observes “It seems to us that the publishing industry – especially foreign publishers with distributorship in India – don’t want to open themselves up to competition in the distribution market and are opposing this most commendable move.”
He concludes that allowing parallel imports will, in fact, result in an expansion of the reading market.
“It is mainly foreign publishers’ monopoly rights over distribution which will be harmed by this amendment, while Indian publishers, Indian authors, and Indian readers, especially students, will stand to gain. Furthermore, in the long run, even foreign publishers will stand to gain due to market expansion. Any legitimate worries that publishers may have are better dealt with under other laws (such as the Customs Act) and not the Copyright Act.”
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