What are the Exceptions to the copyright protection?

The principle of conditionally granting the proprietary rights in intellectual property is for the purpose of promoting the public interest. A copyright is one of the categories of intellectual property protection. Copyright under the Indian law is granted to the proprietors for protecting their original work. The works that are given protection under the copyright account includes a literary work, artistic work, musical, dramatic, cinematographic and also the sound recordings. An example for the literary works consists of books and computer programs, etc. 

The Copyright Act 1957, under section 13 the owner has got the legal right to protect their work from getting copied, used or remade without their permission. The copyright work that is registered is given the protection and only the proprietors can exercise such copyrights. But there are certain exceptions to the copyright protection which shall be dealt in this article in a very detailed manner. Continue reading to know more.

What is Copyright Infringement?

Section 51 of the Copyright Act talks about when a copyright is infringed. Copyright infringement means an unauthorized use of someone’s copyrighted work without the owner’s permission. Thus, if someone is using someone else’s copyrighted work and that too without the author’s valid permission is said to have thereby infringed certain specified rights of the copyright holder, which includes rights such as right to distribute, right to reproduce, right to display or the right to perform the protected work.

It is important for considering for the purpose of copyright infringement that the unauthorized person has copied a substantial part of the owners work. Hence, while deciding the case even the court also tries to consider, that how an ordinary person shall perceive the work that is being infringed.

What is Exception to Copyright Infringement?

We all know about the Copyright Infringement , however it is not applicable in every case. Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957^[1] deals with the exception to Infringement which reads as “Certain acts not to be Infringement of Copyright”.

Furthermore, as the Section 52 is very wide, we will only deal about the same in few parts. We will deal with the Exception in the case of Fair Dealing with any work”.

Section 52 (1) – The following given below act shall not amount to an infringement of copyright, namely, —

(a) Any fair dealing with the author’s work, not being a computer programme, is used for the purposes of—

(i) personal or private use, including study and research;

(ii) Criticism of the work or review on that work or of any other work;

(iii) The reporting of the current affairs and current events, which shall include the reporting of any lecture being delivered in public.

Explanation — The storing of the author’s work in any electronic medium for the purposes specified in this clause, including any incidental storage in any computer programme which is not in itself an infringing copy, shall not amount to infringement of copyright.

What does Doctrine of Fair Dealing mean?

The term “fair dealing” is not defined anywhere in the Act. It is a legal doctrine which gives permission to a person that he can make a restricted or limited use of the copyrighted work without the owner’s permission.

Hence, Fair Dealing is an exception and limitation to the author’s sole and exclusive right granted by copyright law for a creative work. Fair dealing permits the use or reproduction or use of copyrighted work in such a manner, which, but because of the exception created would have resulted in infringement of copyright. Thus, it is kept out of the mischief of the copyright law.

The defence of “fair dealing” primarily originated and developed as a doctrine of equity which permits the use of the copyrightable works, and such work which could have been otherwise prohibited and which if used or reproduced would amount to infringement of the copyright. The main objective behind the doctrine is to avoid the stagnation for the development and growth of creativity for the progress for which the law has been designed.

With the emerging growth, India has seen tremendous technological improvement but still obtains a very fractional scope in the law of fair dealing. But now the continuous advancement through judicial activism and inventive interpretations has been beneficially introduced in this field.

What is Explanation of Fair Dealing?

The explanation of fair dealing will depend on whether the person’s use of the copyright material is actually “fair” and that would depend completely on the facts and circumstances of the case. There is a very thin line difference between infringement and “fair dealing”.

In India, there are no fixed guidelines to define the exact passages or the number of words that can be used with limited restriction without the author’s permission. It is on the discretion of the Court to apply the basic common sense to determine this. However, the court shall make sure that the extracted portion must be such that it is not substantially affecting the interest of the Author.

The fair nature of the dealing shall depend on the following given below four factors:

Conclusion

Exceptions to the copyright protection are required to be dealt fairly. Therefore, Fair dealing is a considerable limitation on the owner’s creative right to protect the copyright owner. The judges in various cases has  interpreted by judging the economic impact the infringement has on the copyright owner and it’s not significant the use will be constituted as a fair dealing.

Read our article:How to use Copyrighted Content in India?