The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012
The Copyright Amendment Bill 2010 was discussed on thursday in the Rajya Sabha. It was passed by the House, finally after being on the shelves for two years.
One of the positive proposed amendments is the extension of fair dealings to all works, and parallel importation ( importation of a non counterfeit product from another country without the permission of the intellectual property owner) will be allowed. This would prove beneficial to the use and importation of products based regions other than the place of consumption or use.
The scope of use of works in educational institutions and for educational purposes will be expanded and libraries will be allowed to keep electronic records of their contents. Copyright societies, under the amendment are to be responsible to the authors of works and not to copyright societies.
The amendment further attempts to utilise open source software for open licensing. The partial exemption for online intermediaries regarding transient and incidental storage appears to be an attempt to incorporate the safe harbour provision of the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
A possible negative provision of the bill is the proposed increase in the duration of copyright, which would reduce the accessibility and usability of the work to the general public. Further, technological protection measures to be introduced in India may mirror the anti-consumer character they have in other countries.
No comments:
Post a Comment