Copy Right law in India as at 17TH MAY, 2012

Comment

Comment by John Bosco Kintu KAVUMA on July 31, 2012 at 10:53am

Hi Robert,
My interpretation of the Indian Copy right law and that clause in particular is that copy rights are transferrable rights. A person can apply to inherit or use of part of the original rights of another party so long as it serves public interest. In my view, this is not in contravention of the need to protect copyright and patent holders interests but also to avoid dormant copy rights. For economist, I would tern such a provision as secondary market/trading of copy rights. However, we still need to know the intentions and reasons behind such a provision. On one hand, it might be that the government is inclined at curbing circulation/dissemination of information whose actual origin and propriety is unknown. on the otherhand, the objective might be to ensure that users access credible information or sinmply to enhance access to public information. It strongly believe this is not new and most of our national copy rights laws could be possessing similar provisions. My take however, is that copy rights laws are not adequate to either improve access to information or protect propriety rights - there is further need to enact and enforce Data protection laws and improve national information security environment including estalsihment of public key infrastructure (PKI) and other information security systems. To enforce the copy rights laws there is also a need to invest in intelligent networks. What is your experience out there?