The Doctrine of Copyright Exhaustion in Software under Indian Copyright Act: A Cursory Glance

Abstract

This study provides that copyright exhaustion serves an important social function of reducing the cost of information costs. Without it, buyers will be required to waste time and resources inquiring about their ability to resell copyrighted work. Because resale rights are generally regarded as desirable by society, the law should ordinarily grant them to buyers. There are costs associated with copyright exhaustion. The major drawbacks included a decline in the incentives to innovate as well as a regressive distributive effect as a result of copyright exhaustion’s restriction on some price discrimination methods. The breadth of copyright exhaustion should be determined by the balance of these benefits and costs. This study applies the doctrinal method and explores the preferred scope of copyright exhaustion. The study argues that the copyright owner should not be prevented from exercising control over the commercial importation of copyrighted work or distributions of digital work. However, copyright exhaustion should be restricted and the copyright should not be allowed to bypass it by including magic words in their standard-form agreements. The study will examine Article 14 of the Indian Copyright Act 1957 with Art. 30 of the copyright. The present study shall briefly examine the copyright law on the applicability of doctrine in Indian copyright jurisprudence.

Keywords: Exhaustion rule, copyright infringement, copyright monopoly, software, and IP protection

JEL Classification: 11