Copyrights and copywrongs

Why the government should embrace the public domain

Access to Knowledge
IPR
Open access
Author

Pranesh Prakash

Published

August 1, 2013

Publication

Yojana

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Original URL
Abstract

The traditional justifications for copyright no longer hold good in the digital era, and what we’re seeing now is copyright maximalism, which is harming access to knowledge and freedom of expression. The Indian government should, at the very least, relinquish government copyright and place all government works in the public domain.

Keywords

copyright, public domain, access to knowledge, a2k, open access, openess


Each of you reading this article is a criminal and should be jailed for up to three years. Yes, you. "Why?" you may ask.

Have you ever whistled a tune or sung a film song aloud?  Have you ever retold a joke?  Have you replied to an e-mail without deleting the copy of that e-mail that automatically added to the reply?  Or photocopied pages from a book?  Have you ever used an image from the Internet in presentation?  Have you ever surfed the Internet at work, used the the 'share' button on a website, or retweeted anything on Twitter?  And before 2012, did you ever use a search engine?

If you have done any of the above without the permission of the copyright holder, you might well have been in violation of the Indian Copyright Act, since in each of those examples you're creating a copy or are otherwise infringing the rights of the copyright holder.  Interestingly, it was only through an amendment in 2012 that search engines (like Google and Yahoo) were legalized.

One size doesn’t fit all

It is easy to see that copyright is an ill-fit for all the things that it now covers.  Copyright in its present form is a historical accident, which evolved into the state it is in a very haphazard fashion.  It is a colonial imposition on developing countries.  It does not value that which we often value in Indian culture: tradition.  Instead, copyright law values modernity and newness.  It can also be seen as a trade issue imposed on us through the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Agreement (TRIPS Agreements) as part of the World Trade Organization.

Importantly, copyright is not a single well-planned scheme.  In some cases — for literature, visual art works, lyrics, musical tunes, etc. — it provides rights to the artist, while in other cases — for recordings of those musical tunes, and for films — it provides rights to the producers.  What are the legal reasons for this distinction?  There aren't any; the distinction is a historical one (with sound recordings and films getting copyright protection after literature, etc.).  At one point of time only exact copies were governed by copyright law.  Hence, translations of a work were considered not to be infringement of that work (or a "derivative work"), but new independent works, since after all it takes considerable artistic effort to create a good translation of a work.  However now even creating an encyclopedia based on Harry Potter (as the Harry Potter Lexicon was), is covered as infringement of the exclusive rights of the author. At one point of time photographs were not provided any copyright, being as they are, 'mere' mechanical reproductions.  They were seen as not being 'creative' enough.  However, around the turn of the twentieth century, that position changed, and hence every photograph you've taken of your dog is now copyrighted.  According to a recent Supreme Court decision, merely adding paragraph numbering to court judgments is considered to be 'creative' enough to merit copyright protection!  At one point of time, copyright existed for 14 years. Now, with the international minimum being "fifty years after the death of the author", it lasts for an average of more than a century!  Once upon a time, copyright was only granted to those who wanted it and applied for it.  That has now changed, and you have copyright over every single original thing that you have ever written, recorded, or otherwise affixed to a medium.

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Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{prakashCopyrightsCopywrongs2013,
  author = {Prakash, Pranesh},
  title = {Copyrights and Copywrongs: Why the Government Should Embrace
    the Public Domain},
  journal = {Yojana},
  date = {2013-08},
  urldate = {2023-08-16},
  url = {http://www.yojana.gov.in/topstory_details.asp?storyid=505},
  entrysubtype = {magazine},
  langid = {en},
  abstract = {The traditional justifications for copyright no longer
    hold good in the digital era, and what we’re seeing now is copyright
    maximalism, which is harming access to knowledge and freedom of
    expression. The Indian government should, at the very least,
    relinquish government copyright and place all government works in
    the public domain.}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Prakash, Pranesh. 2013. “Copyrights and Copywrongs: Why the Government Should Embrace the Public Domain.” Yojana, August 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20230816140644/https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/yojana-august-2013-pranesh-prakash-copyrights-and-copywrongs-why-the-govt-should-embrace-the-public-domain. http://www.yojana.gov.in/topstory_details.asp?storyid=505.