Bill to expand copyright law goes to Rajya Sabha
A contentious Bill, which seeks to expand the definition of copyright and bring into place a system of statutory licensing to protect the owners of literary or musical works, was introduced in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, amid the uproar by the Opposition demanding the resignation of Home Minister P Chidambaram.
The Copyright (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to amend the 54-year-old Copyright Act to fine-tune it to relevant international treaties, includes a system of compulsory licensing of copyrighted works for the benefit of the disabled, with the prior approval of the Copyright Board.
It also protects performer’s rights, including, allowing them to make sound or visual recordings of their performances and reproduce them in any medium, issue copies to the public or sell or rent a copy of the recording. Copyright in a film currently rests with the producer for 60 years. The proposed legislation also extends copyright to the director and for 70 years.
The Bill makes special provisions for those whose work is used in films or sound recordings like lyricists or composers. It stipulates that the rights to royalties from such work, when used in media other than films or sound recordings, will rest with the creator of the work and can only be assigned to heirs, or copyright societies which act in their interests.
The Bill allows for the production of copyrighted work in special formats, such as Braille, without infringing copyright. It also specifies a procedure by which a work can be produced in general formats, for use by such people.
