Proposed Copyright amendments-the road ahead for entertainment industries

The amendments proposed by Ministry of Human Resource and Development has been approved by the Union Cabinet as per the press release.
The amendments are result of consistent lobbying by the entertainment industry particularly the artists to have a better bargaining ground based on the legislation.

The proposed amendments concerning the entertainment industry are in the following areas:

a) Introduction of anti-circumvention laws more in line with the World Copyright Treaty and World Performers and Phonograms Treaty of 1996

b) Version recording to be brought under compulsory licensing and interest of copyright holder to be protected while making a sound recording of any literary, dramatic or musical work.

c) Statutory licensing for musical works to allow public access to such over Radios and Televisions.

c) Producers and Directors to be joint Authors of a cinematograph Film and copyright term shall be 70 years for films provided Producers share the royalty with the Directors

d) Writers to retain their right to receive royalties in their contracts with producers through collective societies for any commercial exploitation of their work.

The amendments as proposed if introduced would have significant effect for all the stakeholders in the film business.
The introduction of anti-circumvention laws might be good for the production houses but would it be realistic to have these technological protection measures in the first place? In all probabilities, introduction of these technologies would shoot up the prices which in turn would effect the sale of DVDs and similar formats, the business of which are in any way in red in the present time. In a country where pirated DVDs of films are out in market from bootleg recording in cinema halls or the prints are itself copied due to logistical gaps, what purpose would introduction of Technological protection measures and anti-circumvention laws have to tackle piracy is something only time will tell.

Secondly, what is the basis for extension of copyright of films to 70 years if directors are co-authors? How does making Directors, the co-authors in a film, justify the extension of the term of copyright to 70 years? If a director can be an author in a film why cannot a script-writer, a cinematographer or a screenplay writer not a author? By making Director alone a co-author, the roles of other contributors in the making of a film is undermined. Hopefully, the legislation would only have a prospective effect. Any retrospective effect to extend copyright term to the existing films would have a counter-productive effect in terms of cultural creativity.

Again extension of the term of copyright to 70 years has no reasonable basis. why 70 years and why not 80/90 or 100 years? Afterall there is no restriction for the upper limit for the copyright term in the international conventions

The proposal giving the authors or literary and musical works right to royalty for any commercial exploitation of their work would be seriously prejudicing the interests of the producers as this would change the one-time payment commercial model that is presently followed as it would require a complicated system to be in place where every commercial exploitation has to be traced, accounted for and revenue collected. This would also require revamping the various trade bodies and collective copyright societies that exists whose functioning has to be made more transparent and systematic for such a complicated system to be in place.

Lastly, the proposal for statutory licesnsing of musical works to be available for radio and television broadcast intends to provide a legislative wording for "public interest" aspect opined by Justice S. B. Sinha of the Supreme Court in the case of Entertainment Network (India) Ltd. Vs M/s Super Cassette Industries Ltd. Although the decision deliberated upon the need for public access to musical works and underlined a theme of public interest in such access, the decision itself did not provide any hint or guideline to determine the rates at which such licesning should be allowed by the music companies, which was primarily the moot question of the dispute between the music companies and Radio companies. The decision left it to the Copyright Board to decide the rates which till date remains unsettled.

Hopefully before being legislated and implemented, the wording are reviwed to avoid the confusions as raised in the present post.