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VIJAYAKUMAR (Asst.Manager Lega)     08 February 2012

Copyright violation?

Dear all,

In my company, the HR has been circulating internal magazine to managers (100 nos) which contains articles by eminent authors.  It is free of cost and the purpose  is to  educate  the managers.

The articles were downloaded from the internet.  In our internal magazine, we will mention the name of the author and souce of the information at the end of the each article.

I want to know whether this private circulation of articles is copyright violation?  If it is violation, then how we can protect from violation?

VIJAY 



Learning

 4 Replies

Nagaraja B S (Corporate Commercial & IP Lawyer)     10 February 2012

 

Mr. Vijay,


As long as it done free of cost & due credit given to author, there will be no issue.

For more details contact,

Thanks

Nagaraj

Corporate, Commercial & IP Lawyer

IP Lex Global Services

www.iplexglobal.in

Email: nagaraja_bs@iplexglobal.in

VIJAYAKUMAR (Asst.Manager Lega)     10 February 2012

Thank u very much for your opinion.

Can u please provide any Supreme court or Highcourt judgments relating to this issue?

With regards,

VIJAY

Sy.patents (Freelance)     18 February 2012

Vijay,

In my opinion you should obtain copyright permission from the author (owner) of the copyright. It is author's sole right to reproduce the work  or authorize someone for such a reproduction. Absent any permission, I find a case for copyright violation, unless it falls under fair use exemption. I fail to see fair use in the present context.

 

Your company appears to be a commercial organization. Even if they are distributing these articles internally and free of cost to employees there is always some kind of commercial angle, since the company will get some indirect benefit (efficient workforce leading to increased profits..........).

 

The safest way is to write reviews of those articles (or may be write an abstract) and cite them as references. If any of your employee is interested in reading its full text, they may consult the original source.

 

I hope this helps. This does not constitute a legal advice.

Sy.patents (Freelance)     18 February 2012

Additional point:

 Please check copyright notices associated with the articles or the websites where they appear. If there are appropriate permissions for their reproduction or distribution, even in commercial settings like yours, you may not be infringing!


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