IPR A Tool to tackle the Issues of Digital Copyright

abstract

Intellectual Property Rights are basically property rights. Since these property rights claim monopoly
rights however limited it might be -over innovations and creatz' or some other jbrms of knowledge or
infbmgation, it has to be insured that while granting protection, no monopoly is extended to abstract
knowledge or to that, which is already in the public domain. In order to achieve this, some ' minimum
requirements are prescribed for claiming dwerent types ofintellectual ' property protection. For e.g, the
copyright law requires that fbr claiming protection under the law, works literary, musicial, artistic.
dramatic are required to have a minimum amount of originality. Another requirement is that the work
must consist of “expression ofideas ” and not just “ideas ”.

Copyright is a bundle of rights given by the law to the creators of literary. dramatic, musicial and artistic
works and the producers qfcinematographyfilms and sound recordings. The rights provided under the
copyright law include the rights of reproduction of work, communication of works to the public,
adaption of the work and translation of the work. The scope and duration ofthe protection provided
under copyright law varies with the nature ofthe protected“.

The Copyright Act, I 95 7 provided for the copyright twice headed by the Registrar of Copyright, (1
Copyright Board, a change in the terms ofcopvrights. assignment of copyrights, licence of copyright and
several such things. The Government of India passed the Digital Millenium C opvright Act. which updated
copyright laws to update the realities ofthe Digital technologies at present. With the growth and
development (.31 tevhnuiogg' and more [mrticuiarb'

digitimtion, the entire world has recognized the need for the Digital Copyright law.

Hence, to tackle these issues of digital copyright the government has made some effective role but some
more steps are needed so that there could be transparency in system ofcopyrights.

Introduction

Intellectual Property Rights are the rights given to persons over creations of their minds. They usually
give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her creation for a certain period of time“.
Intellectual Property Rights is a legal field that refers to creations of minds such as musicial, .literary,
artistic, symbols, names, images, designs used in commerce including copyright, trademark, patents and
related rights. Under the IPR, the holder of one of thse abstract “ properties has certain exclusive rights
to the creative works, commercial symbols, or invention which is covered by it7.

Every author has a right in the work he creates. This is inherent in him by reason of he being an authorIt
creates in an author an exclusive right to produce, reproduce, publish and perform his work in all ways
known and dispute with other persons who for one reason or other may claim to have some interest in
copyright in relation to the work in dispute This is what

copyright ISS.

The emergence of digital technologies towards the concluding decades of the twcntierth ccntuary raised
a whole new set of challenges to copyright regimes. The traditional notions of the basic concepts such as
reproduction and distribution have become inadequate and even irrelevant in the digital world .All the
works can now be digitali'zed whether they compromise texta. images. sounds or diagrams and once
digitaliled the various elemenn wch as inmgcs are all “equal“ and can be merged. transformed ,
manipulated or mixed to create an endless variety of new works.

Prominent Digital Copyright Issues

With the emergence of the digital environment the access use, duplication or modification of the original
work has become really easy. Digital environment has laid a path for people for widespread cost effective
distribution of the original work, posing serious threats to the interest of the creator. The threats posed
digital environment to the copyrighted work is very much different from that in normal course in the
physical work. Some of these are as follows:

1 .Software We all know that software programs can be copied and regenerated perfectly. It also creates
possibility of loading programs onto more than one computers. According to Business Software Alliance9
3500 of the world‘s software is pirated, where in India it is 69° 0.
2. Scanners -A scanner technology produces a photograph or any other picture in a perfect form without
decreasing its quality. Moreover if we take copyright

into consideration, reproduced images can stored for future references and can be modified. ‘

3. E-mail E-mails are the greatest threats to the in Digital Media. E-mail is the fastest way to transfer
messages. As soon as the user login to the online service and retrieve the mail and if he wants to take a
print or forward the message he is in danger of commiting the copyright ingringement. According to the
existing copyright act e~mails come under the category of literary work.

4. Site Licensing A site license is a type of sohware license that allows the user the user to install a
software package in several computers simultaneously such as a particular site-across a corporation.
Depending upon the amount of fees pai¢ the license may be unlimited or may limit simultaneously
access to certain number of users.10 A single access to a product purchased downloaded on. two or
more computers leads to copyright breach which can be easily traced.

Some more issues are Multimedia and CD-ROMS, issues realted to intemet and other networks.

How to Tackle such Issues

distribution of original copyright work. The well known DRM techniques are as follows: '

*Access Control and Copy Control Access control and copy control is a technique which allows the owner
to keep a check on the illegal exploitation of the of his original work. The technique ensures that those
who will pay will only have the right to enjoy the original work. Copy control allows manipulation of
original work.
*Encryption Scheme Encryption scheme allows the owner to protect their original work from any
unauthorized access. In incryption there there is scrambling of bits which prevents the contents from
being clearly visible unless it is decrypted. Only authorized users have the right to decrypt the original
content.

*Digital Watermarks -Digital Watermarks is a technique which allows the owner to trace out the copying
of the original work. Special technique has beef: induced in it so that we can know that the work has
been ccpied or not and if _ c0pied then what is the original source of it. It can also contain c0py control ~
information.

Few techniques were introduced in the copyright law by an amendment in 2012 through sec 65A and sec
658.

Conclusion

Inspite of implementing these techniques the mongs related Digital Copyright could not be stopped.
India is still on a path where such goals yet to be achieved. These DRM provisions under Indian law are
not as exhaustive as US laws. It is also a well known fact that most of the users are not aware of the
copn'ght laws which are there to safeguard the research works. 80 users could be made aware through
various literary programs so that conflict could be settled between the owners and the users. Due to not
having knowledge about the value of copyn'ght laws unintentionally the users commit the act of
copyright infiingement. However, there should be a proper check and balance technique maintained
between copyright holders and general users.