Electronic Infringement of Copyright: A Real Challenge Ahead

Abstract

Western concept of Intellectual property rights involves creating restrictive monopoly of knowledge which is quite contrary to the age old Indian belief where ‘knowledge’ has always been in public domain and ‘Copyright’ is not an exception to this general rule. Today, after the introduction and globalisation and arrival of the WTO, the copyright and related rights do not remain only the cultural right moreover, it has earned an effective economic value throughout the globe.

The infringements of copyright through electronic modes are rampant in India. The internet activities like caching, browsing, mirroring, scanning, uploading, downloading or file swapping are some of the ideal example of electronic copyright infringements, but still there is no specific remedy for these infringements. The copyright is nowadays not remain a manual form of rights but became electronic rights. The electronic infringement of Copyright in can be seen commonly by way of Software Piracy, Internet Piracy, and Playing TV and Cable Television etc. The Internet Service Providers, Bulletin Board Services, Commercial Web sites and even Private Users are responsible for the electronic infringement of copyright because they are reluctant to take any steps for eradicating this infringement because of their personal commercial interest and lacking of strict and specific punishment for non-regarding of laws either under the Copyright Act, 1957 or under Information Technology (amendment) Act, 2000.

The report of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) on India documented that India suffered trade losses worth 496.3 million US dollars due to copyright piracy . Thus, it require a serious thought from the person concerned so that our copyright industry can also remarkable contribute to the revenue of the nation at the one hand and the creator could get the appropriate value for his creation on the other.