{"id":189478,"date":"2022-06-08T20:23:21","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T14:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=189478"},"modified":"2022-06-08T20:24:02","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T14:54:02","slug":"crime-and-copyright-infringement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/crime-and-copyright-infringement\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime and copyright infringement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News<\/strong>: The Supreme Court of India, in Knit Pro International v. The State of NCT<\/em><\/strong> has ruled that the copyright infringement is a cognisable offence under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973.<\/p>\n

Legal framework for copyright in India
\n<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The Indian Copyright Act makes a distinction between commercial<\/strong> and non-commercial infringement.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It allows the courts to impose a sentence of less than six months or a fine of less than Rs. 50,000. The imprisonment may extend up to three years.<\/p>\n

The law criminalises those acts which grossly violate a copyrighted work. For example, Bollywood production house faces criminal investigations on the criminal complaints filed by scriptwriters.<\/p>\n

What is a cognizable Offence?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

It means that the police can begin investigations into allegations of copyright infringement on receiving a complaint. However, in a non-cognisable offence<\/strong>, the police start an investigation only after a judicial magistrate had taken cognisance of the offence and directed the police to initiate an investigation.<\/p>\n

Implication of the judgment<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Since the offence would be cognisable and non-bailable. Therefore, the copyright owners, especially in the software and music industries, can extort disproportionate licence fees<\/strong> in the name of police threat <\/strong>against potential infringers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This will take away the right of the accused to post a bail bond with the police. This prevent shifting the responsibility on to the courts for judicial determination<\/strong> on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n

The decision can pave the way for the police to impinge on civil liberties<\/strong>, like it can have chilling effects<\/strong> on free speech. Further, it can lead to impeding the ease of business and have<\/p>\n

What are issues in allowing the police to begin criminal investigations into copyright infringement?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Unlike trademark law, it is not mandatory<\/strong> under the Copyright Act to register copyrights as a necessary precondition in order to enforce the same. A copyright is created the moment a piece of art or music or literature is fixed on a medium, provided it is original.<\/p>\n

There can be issues on asserting whether the said piece of art or music or literature is in fact \u2018original\u2019.<\/p>\n

In case of original content, the use of the copyrighted work is permissible or not, is another question.<\/p>\n

If a copyright work is qualified for protection under the Designs Act of 2000. In that case, the copyright protection cannot be claimed under the Copyright Act.<\/p>\n

Further, In the very question of determination of copyright infringement, the require the court applies the test of substantial similarity<\/strong> (both qualitative and quantitative) on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n

The present levels of training<\/strong> and funding<\/strong> of the investigation officers like the average police sub-inspector, to conduct an efficient investigation<\/strong> into copyright infringement <\/strong>is limited.<\/p>\n

Argument against making copyright infringement a cognizable offence<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The criminalisation of copyright infringement in India should be re-looked. In 1914, the copyright infringement only attracted a monetary fine <\/strong>under the Imperial Copyright Act, 1911<\/strong>. Later, one-year imprisonment was introduced in 1957. Further, the term of punishment was tripled to three years.<\/p>\n

The TRIPS do not require criminalising all kinds of copyright infringement. It differentiates between copyright infringement<\/strong> and copyright piracy<\/strong>. All piracy of copyrighted works is an act of infringement, but all infringement cannot be termed as piracy. For example, the criminal measures can be applied against \u201cwilful copyright piracy\u201d<\/strong> on a \u201ccommercial scale\u201d<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt<\/strong> in copyright infringement cases.<\/p>\n

Way Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n

The law should be amended to differentiate<\/strong> between the different acts of copyright infringement and to include the requirement of prior judicial cognisance<\/strong> to start criminal investigation by the police.<\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article \u201cCrime and copyright infringement<\/strong>\u201d published in the \u201cThe Hindu<\/strong>\u201d on 8th<\/sup> June 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: The Supreme Court of India, in Knit Pro International v. The State of NCT has ruled that the copyright infringement is a cognisable offence under the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973. Legal framework for copyright in India The Indian Copyright Act makes a distinction between commercial and non-commercial infringement. It allows the courts… Continue reading Crime and copyright infringement<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10498],"class_list":["post-189478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}