INTELLECTUAL pROPERTY lAW IN iNTERNET
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he rapid technological changes and the convergence of telecommunication, broadcasting and information technology challenge the existing legal institutions. The delicate balance of rights and obligations of intermediaries of Internet such as copyright owners, domain name holders, consumers, netizens and internet service providers can be upset when trying to keep the legal developments abreast with the technological advances.
Software and telecom companies, broadcasting organisations have all found a niche in cyberspace while legislation tries to keep a pace. We are still governing the converging technologies by the traditional Intellectual property legislations. Going by the latest events in the digital world, there are no doubts that the future balance of rights will depend on the current bargains and the judicial decisions about the extension of a central element in contemporary law ‑ the intellectual property legislation.
Similarly, the emergence of digital and information technologies towards the concluding decades of the twentieth century as the defining paradigms of new age communication have raised a whole new set of challenges to the Intellectual property regime.
As more and more digital products in network environment are emerging efficient management and controlled distribution of such products have become one of the important considerations, as never before. The copyright owners are under a constant threat of loosing control over their products on the information superhighway and are implementing various technological adjuncts to retain control.
Differences in rules are beginning to be questioned. Now the regulation is a great challenge before the world because the way legal and regulatory reform is carried out will determine the manner in which convergence affects our daily lives.
The fundamental problem in
The objectives of the bill are fairly well drafted and the intention to bring about a convergence between conflicting interests of all segments including the Government, Business and the Consumer are well stated. But the bill is totally silent on the copyright and trademarks implications of the converging technologies.
The converging technologies contributing the core issues. Telecom contributes with infrastructure regulation and access issues; broadcasting with access and content issues; IT contribute with new regulatory issues of copyright. Which are as follows: framing, hyper‑linking, deep-linking, inlining, fixation, communication, publication, parallel imports, Rights Management Information, allocation of frequency spectrum, Fair dealing, implied license, Liability of Internet Service Providers (ISP), domain name and jurisdiction are challenges before the regulators.
So an effort is made to enquire the appropriateness, compatibility and efficaciousness of the traditional conceptual framework of telecommunication, broadcasting and information technology, a construct of technological age to encompass multimedia works, computer programme, and websites a creation of convergence age, and an enquiry into the possibility of umbrella legislation for convergent multimedia regulation.
The objective is to provide the Government with sound analytical instruments that will enable the tracing of a regulatory framework for the telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology sectors in a convergence environment, and taking in due relevance the need to safeguard the public interest. The process for the “Convergence its implications and Regulation” involves a number of activities, of which present work is part, to collect, analyse and find out viable solutions.
The hypothesis is proved by using the different techniques, models in the present research work that the inherent difficulties of enforcing the rights and obligations the intermediaries of Internet world wide is the cause of digital intellectual property implications and the legal liability for copyright infringement may be on those who allow and enable the copyright infringers to exist namely the Internet service providers (ISPs).
A survey of 30 national and international statutes governing intellectual property was undertaken. Attention was paid in the survey to the following aspects, namely -, protection of multimedia products, software protection and combatting piracy, protection of the contents on websites, domain names, and liability of Internet service providers.
Following are the findings of the survey and conclusions that are drawn in respect of the aforesaid aspects.
Technology Convergence and its regulation
It critically and comprehensively analyses the convergence bill 2001.The Communication Commission of India can regulate the content of programmes for various purposes such as “in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of the nation”. This provision can be abused and used for “Censorship” of the media. This is the most contentious clause in the opinion of the media owners.
In order to provide a mechanism for checking abuse of this provision,
an additional “Citizen’s Programme Code Committee” should be formed which can hear appeals from the aggrieved persons and provide its views.
If the decision of the committee is not acceptable, the aggrieved parties can resort to the legal remedy available through the Appellate tribunal. This will provide for a Citizen’s group to sit in judgment of subjective issues such as “Indian Culture”, “Allowable degree of Violence”,” Decency in portrayal of Women” etc for which legal remedies are not always the right answer.
An applicant before the Tribunal can appear himself or authorize one or more Chartered Accountant, Company Secretary, Cost Accountant or a Legal Practitioner and proceeds to present his or its case before the tribunal. This restriction of representation to certain categories of professionals only is unnecessary and discriminatory. It is suggested that the appellant can authorize one or more persons of his choice to represent him without the need for such a person to be a Chartered Accountant etc. In such a case a Telecom Consultant can also represent the appellant.
Even though the objectives of the Bill provide that the Commission is duty bound to take care of consumer interest also, there is no evidence of how this can be achieved. It must also be accepted that “Consumer Interest”," Business Interest” and “National Interest” will be conflicting in many areas and the Commission will be subjected to pressures from different sides. The national interest will be taken care by the Government and the Business interests will be taken care by the “Public Relation Managers”. The Consumer will have to however organize himself through voluntary organizations. The Bill can at least take note of the need for such organizations and if possible provide some support.
Provisions of Section 66 and Section 70 overlap with corresponding provisions in Information technology Act 2000 and provide for different penalties/punishments. This will create unnecessary confusion. Our submission is that there must be similar penalties /punishments in both the provisions.
Whoever attempts to commit or abets commission of an offence will be deemed to have committed the offence”. This is a dangerous provision and can be misused by the Police to harass innocent individuals. This totally removes the concept of “Need for a Guilty Mind” for any offence and will bring all erroneous and unintentional violations under punishable offences. One simple example could be a “Wrong tuning of a Radio equipment to a frequency other than the intended frequency”. It is submitted that the Sec.71 of CCB should be deleted. Alternatively, it may be replaced if necessary by a provision which may state “Whoever willfully attempts to commit or abets the Commission of any offence, under the provision shall be punishable with such punishment as may be deemed reasonable under the circumstances of the case and any such punishment shall not exceed half of the maximum punishment that could have been levied if the offence had been committed willfully”.
A license would be required for any “Wireless equipment”. In order to avoid confusion, the consumer equipments such as Mobile phones, Cordless telephones, Radio sets, and Television sets, and infrared remote operating devices etc should be specifically exempted. So there is emergent need to suppress the license raj in this area.
ICT and media convergence issues are primarily about improving the efficiency of market economies, and how changes in regulation can facilitate this process. It is likely to be of primary interest for countries that already have an established effective independent telecom regulator. Multi-sector regulation issues are primarily about establishing the efficiency and effectiveness of regulation so it can be a catalyst for network and economic development. It is likely to be of primary interest to countries that have not yet established effective telecom regulation. Each regulatory option arises from an initial diagnose of different problems, and represents different priorities and pathways to achieving a very similar set of development objectives.
Indecision of policy makers in setting clear parameters for the development of convergent activities is a major stumbling block in many Asian countries. This not only retards the growth of many new beneficial systems and services, but also prolongs the agony of incumbents to adjust to the new environment while even basic services continue to be widely inaccessible.
The slowness of the reaction of regulators often means resorting to largely unsatisfactory stop-gap measures in order to cope with the rapid technological changes. Instead, regulators need to plan ahead with flexible frameworks of dealing with largely unforeseen and unpredictable technological and market changes. Governments cannot shy away from convergence or they will deny themselves necessary advancement while continuing to keep their people at a disadvantage
Getting the regulatory house in order remains a primary challenge in much of
Focusing on providing transparent and fair regulation for the development of technologies and services to meet information needs and desires in the face of inevitable social and political changes from within and outside countries is the challenge to address in
The discovery reveals that the proposed bill is not sufficient to meet the new challenges in the convergence environment.
Our submission is that, there is a need to adopt a flexible method of regulation in
Copyright protection of multimedia products in the convergent environment.
Generally, the various rights included under copyright are the rights of authorship, reproduction, distribution, broadcasting, adaptation, translation and communication to the public. These rights allow the copyright owner to control the use of these protected works.
While the shape of copyright law has always been drawn by the developments in the technological world, the emergence of digital technologies towards the concluding decades of the twentieth century as the defining paradigms of new age communication have raised a whole new set of challenges to copyright regimes. All works can now be digitalized whether they comprise texts, images, sound, animation, photograph and once digitalized the various elements are all ‘equal’ and can be merged, transformed, manipulated or mixed to create an endless variety of new works. Earlier rights of reproduction and distribution affected only tangible physical copies of a work.
The question is how to qualify digital off-line and on-line media from a copyright perspective. The significance of the issue lies in the fact that the relevant categorization entails different legal consequences and the presence of multimedia work defies existing classification under the copyright law.
The multimedia work can be classified as computer programme since every multimedia work will have a software component. As there are separate provisions for rights and authorship of a computer programme distinct from literary works in the Copyright Act, this could be a possible solution. However, issues may arise on the retention of separate copyrights in the works incorporated in the multimedia, in terms of section 13 of the Copyright Act 1957 and the rights of performers in the product. At present, large numbers of multi-media works are being created by combining pre-existing works.
As for the persons who actually make available and download copyrighted works, the law is very clear. Section 14 says that issuing copies of work or communicating the same to public amounts to infringement. So, a person who downloads software like Napster and implements the same on his machine is making the copyrighted work available to any member of the public who has the corresponding software installed on his machine. The person who actually downloads the file containing copyrighted work is reproducing the work without the consent of the copyright owner, so is guilty of copyright violation as well. Section 51(b)(ii) says anyone who distributes either for the purpose of trade or to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright. Any person making available copyrighted works over P2P network may not be trading in the same but he is nevertheless distributing such work, which combined amount to gigantic proportions affecting prejudicially the interests of copyright owner.
Now for networks akin to Gnutella or Kazaa, where there is no central server brokering the requests of people, it is rather hard to stop the system in one go. There is no one person or entity that it managing the affairs. The entire thing is managed by a software and that is already out and lakhs of people have made copies of the same. So we can stop P2P file sharing only with the help of ISPs,
Increasingly, technological solutions are being found for the problems posed by the new technologies through access control or copy control mechanisms such as encryption technology or water marking incorporated into works distributed over digital networks with a view to protecting them from illegal exploitations. Encryption, watermarking, coding, encapsulating copyrighted works in a tamper-resistant electronic envelope, electronic lamination, etc., have already been experimented with. But a complete reliance on the exclusivity based on technology could result in gagging of fair use which will be fatal to the balance represented by ‘copyright’.
Our submission is that due to the nature of digital content, a combination of commercial, technological and legal solutions will be utilised to manage copyright material.
Laws governing computer software and measures of controlling the software piracy.
The vexed question is how Software industry would be protected from the piracy? Without strong protection Internet piracy will be mushrooming.
In
The technological measures to combat piracy are essential coupled with strong legal protections must be adopted and more importantly, vigorously enforced worldwide, if sufficient intellectual property incentives are to be upheld. In the absence of suitable legal rules and regulation, digital technology has the potential to undermine the tenets of copyright and related rights.
Moreover, the adjustments that had to be introduced to update copyright rules, namely, the WCT and its implementing Acts, considerably strengthened copyright to such extent that right owners will now have stronger rights than ever before and the rights of users are going to be confined to those for which they had specifically contracted and paid.
Surely, one may say that this reinforced right holder's position shall hardly counterbalance the threats of piracy. Provided this, the very challenge for copyright in the digital era shall be to maintain the delicate balance between the right owners' and authors' interests and the public interests that successfully contributed to progress in the analogue era.
There is an urgent need to strike a balance whereby online copyright infringement is prevented without interfering the legitimate uses of software and computer programmes or limiting the opportunities offered by digital technology and the Internet, Combating software piracy in order to foster the growth of electronic commerce requires a multi faced strategy. It is our submission that Indian government should amend the present copyright act and IT Act 2000 on the line of
The software piracy and music piracy is a threat to the Indian economy our present copyright law is not sufficient to tackle the piracy .Our submission is that the govt., should make a separate law to tackle the piracy related crimes.
Trademark protection to domain names, control of cybersquating and protection of contents in websites
There is no doubt that cyber-squatting is the most contentious issue in the Cyber Law area throughout the world. Since the Internet is a global phenomenon, steps are already afoot to tackle the menace of domain name disputes, especially cyber-squatting, on an international level.
In catena of cases Indian courts have decided that the domain names are trademarks and can be registered as trademarks. The Law of passing off action is fully applied to domain names.
Bringing cyber-squatting within the framework of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, would result in granting trademark holders more extensive protection than what the legislature originally intended. The development may not be healthy because, although the intention of the Court may be to discourage cyber-squatting and curb a social evil, it may result in dangerous precedents, where even genuine registrants of domain names may be adversely affected.
It is pertinent to mention that as the decisions of the WIPO do not have any precedent value and are further subject to the decision of a Court of a competent jurisdiction, the subject of domain name disputes is certainly going to be a contentious issue in bringing actions done over the net under the framework of the existing law.
It is evident that domain names and their misuse by private as well as public portals and firms have become rampant in the absence of a strong jurisdictional jurisprudence. The Internet is a global collection of computer networks and requires global solutions and regulation in a new millennium for a world committed to the digital technology and welfare of the netizens through it. In the light of above discussion is submitted as follows:
The first Come first served basis for registration of Domain name was responsible for the spurt in the growth of cybersquatting or the process of registering a domain name which legally belongs to anothers. The existing TLDs or Top Level Domains have been a big target of cyber squatting. It is possible that with the introduction of the new TLDs, cyber squatting will increase. The Existing ‘UDNDRP’ is a very limited policy and allows only for limited grounds to get back domain names.
In the existing proposals for new top level domain, there are no mechanisms to prevent cybersquatting. It is yet to be seen how ICANN proposes to prevent the recurrence of cybersquatting practices in the TLDs. Therefore, it is clear that the situation is at present not very clear and it is yet to be seen how ICANN proposes to meet the challenges of cybersquatting in the times to come.
This part highlights the scenario when contents of a Website re exploited by others without the owner’s permission or knowledge. The discussion is centred on copyright issues involved in the practices of Linking, Inlining and Framing technologies that are normally being used on the Internet.
By virtue of section 14 and 51, reproducing any copyrighted work, issuing copies of the work to the public or communicating the work to the public could amount to copyright violation. But in case of deep linking, the linking site is not reproducing any work. The reproduction, if at all, takes place at the end of the user who visits the linked page via the link. Can the linking site said to be issuing copies of the work or communicating it to the public? Technically, the linking site is only informing people about the presence of the work and giving the address of the site where the work is present. It is the user’s discretion to access the work by clicking the link. Nevertheless, the linking site is definitely aiding in the distribution of the work.
The definition of communication to the public as provided in 2(ff) could be stretched to cover the communication of contents of a Web site on the Internet as the expression ‘by any means of display’ has been used to define communication.
Without deep linking the Internet as we know it would collapse. One couldn’t have a search engine, for example. But some grey areas do need to be addressed. It is quite different for a search engine to deep link than a competitor of an e-business Web site to do the same. Deep linking to commercial Internet databases without the permission of the content owner could raise many problems.
So, should law be amended to stop deep linking without permission of the owner of the content? Or should the law provide complete immunity to links of all kinds? Internationally, no law till date has put a ban on deep linking. There are indeed problems in doing so. On the one hand, one has to consider the rights of the owner of content and, on the other hand, the interest of the society for which growth of the Internet is all important.
Inlining or ‘In-line linking’ enables a Web page to summon different elements from diverse pages or servers to create a new Web page. Inlining is different from deep linking where the user is usually aware that he has “changed pages”, either from the different appearance of the newly accessed page, or from the change in the URL address displayed in the Web browser.
By inlining the linking site could take some elements from the linked site’s multimedia settings and create it’s own site, thereby affecting the right of making a derivative work of the linked site because taking some elements from the multimedia setting and combining them with some other could well fit into the definition of adaptation. Inlining brings in the question of moral rights as well. Section 57 of the Copyright Act, 1957, which talks about Author’s special rights. So, the practice of inlining may implicate the moral right of the author. The doctrine of moral rights in
Web browsers allow Web authors to divide pages into “frames”. A frame is an independently controllable window on a Web site through which pages from another Web site can be viewed. Since it is possible for a site to call a frame’s contents from a different location, a programmer might “frame” another’s Web content beneath his own navigation or banners. This allows him to use creative content owned by another entity to sell banner advertising on its own site. A typical use of frames is to have one frame containing a selection menu and another frame that contains the space where the selected (linked to) files appear
As in linking and inlining one has to turn to section 51 read with section 14of the Copyright Act, 1957 to test the legality of framing. The person who frames some other site’s content on his site is not causing any direct reproduction of the copyrighted content. Also, the framer is not directly issuing copies of the work nor communicating or distributing the work to the public as the user’s browser is actually fetching the content directly from the owner’s site. But he can be said to be aiding in such communication and distribution.
Section 14(a)(vi) grants the right of adaptation only to the owner of copyrighted work. The framing site could take some elements from the framed site’s multimedia settings and create it’s own, thereby affecting the right of making a derivative work of the framed site because taking some elements from the multimedia setting and combining them with some other could well fit into the definition of adaptation. So, derivation and adaptation rights do come in picture vis-à-vis framing.
Framing brings in the question of moral rights as well. Section 57(1) of the Copyright Act, allows the author to claim authorship of the work. In case of framing the user is confused about the original source and hence may never come to know about the original source and hence may never come to know about the author.
It would not be proper for the Indian legislation to include a provision banishing deep linking, inlining and framinng altogether because the current provisions are sufficient to check the unauthorized use of someone’s content through deep linking, inlining and framing.
In this situation, it is for the courts to decide upon the legality/illegality or linking, inlining and framing from case to case. In case a link, inline and frame amounts to aiding in distribution or communication with dishonest intentions, the courts should come forward and declare such are illegal.
Therefore, the imperative need of the hour is that the legislature catches up with the technical developments and passes a separate law prohibiting cyber-squatting or any other malafide registration of a domain name.
Difficulties in fixing the liability of Internet service providers for copyright infringement.
There is a clear need for international consensus on the law relating to the Internet. Due to the 'global nature of the Internet's purely national responses to the copyright problems... are inadequate' and 'a convergent approach is required'. It is obvious that due to the nature of the Internet ignoring boundaries, national law and territorial sovereignty are incapable of meeting the demands of this new technology. However, it will be shown that international efforts to date have been, at best, inadequate to meet these demands.
The TRIPs agreement resulted in no consensus in the area of copyright and technology. Thorny issues surrounding copyright protection for electronic commerce were not addressed explicitly in TRIPs, requiring the negotiation in 1996 of the Copyright Treaty and the Performance and Phonograms Treaty under the auspices of WIPO'.
Unfortunately the twin WIPO treaties failed to directly legislate on issues relating to the Internet. To reach the goal of international regulation of the Internet one must be realistic and look at specific problems that can be remedied in the short term. However it is currently more of a moot point; nations are, at present, unlikely to relinquish sovereignty to an international 'Internet police force Therefore, pragmatic reform options are proposed.
Countries should come to an understanding on the liability that should be placed on Internet Intermediaries, particularly ISPs. A degree of copyright enforcement can be achieved by holding ISPs liable for the actions of their users. ISPs are better targets for lawsuits, as they will typically have deeper pockets than individual users. A pragmatic approach would be to only hold intermediaries responsible for infringing content where they were made aware of the content, were able to control the content, and failed to act promptly. Evidence of this approach can already be found in the American DMCA and the European E-Commerce Directive. The issue of an appropriate definition for ISPs needs to be considered because a wide definition may not reflect the true services provided by the multitude of providers in existence.
In addition, when considering ISP responsibility, the level that they should monitor their users should be discussed. This monitoring function was left in flux after the ambiguous ruling in Napster. But In the recent case Metro Goldwyne V. Grokster on
However, a clear statement of responsibilities and duties is crucial, not just for traditional ISPs, but also for employers, educational institutions, and cyber cafe owners among others.
If ISPs are given the responsibility to act as judge and jury over contents then the likelihood is that they will err on the side of caution and remove all material that might be infringing. This would lead to many fair uses of copyrighted material being denied. ISPs should not be made to actively monitor their users or content their users upload. Instead a more pragmatic approach should be adopted. The international community should follow the lead of
It is particularly important to obtain wide support for an ISP-related agreement, as countries that did not sign up would become data havens for ISPs allowing infringing content. Wide support might be achieved by the agreement encouraging ISPs to take initiative and regulate themselves.
It is submitted that by including ISPs in deciding their level of responsibility and engaging them in the issue of copyright infringement, they will more receptive to their duties on the Internet and have a better understanding of the appropriate law.
Conclusion and suggestions.
On the basis of the survey in the existing material the researcher has suggested as follows to meet the new challenges.
Intellectual property industry associations/ convergence societies should launch an extensive campaign through print and electronic media highlighting the adversities associated with the convergence. Lectures, seminars, workshops etc. could be organised in schools, colleges, universities and other places to create a consciousness among people against the evils of piracy. The message should be conveyed in clear terms that in the long run piracy is against the interest of all in the society excepting the pirates.
A dedicated institute may be established as a nodal agency to deal with matters of Convergence of Information and communication technologies its impact on IPR, and e-commerce particularly relating to copyright and trademarks. The institution say the Indian Institute of Convergence Technology (IICT) should offer regular courses on Convergence and organise relevant training programmes for all concerned with the IPR like the producers, and sellers of Intellectual property products, E-commerce industries, industry associations, the police and the public at large. Besides, the institution should work in close liaison with the government and Intellectual property, e-commerce industry associations and provide guidance in policy matters. A fund could be set up to research more successful technological protection schemes.
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