CSE INFRINGES COPYRIGHT OF HT

The Delhi High Court has asked the CSE or the Center for Sciemce and Environment, to remove all material which they had taken from Hindustan Times.

The CSE was infringing the copyright of HT by repreoducing material verbatime from HT's publications and potraying them as their own.

Copyright inringement on the Internet seems to be on the increase and users will have to be wary as to how they use materila which they put on the Internet.

HUGH LADDIE PASSES AWAY

Sir Hugh Laddie, a respected and a legendary figure in the field of IPR passed away. He was born in the year 1946 and contributed greatly to IPR especially in the fields of Patents and Copyright. His various decisoons and utterances which are of great academic interest can fill many books by itself.

He was a great man and his loss will be deeply felt in the IPR arena.

THE MINT vs. CSE

A copyright battle has ensued between The Mint (newspaper) and CSE or Center for Science and Environment. The Mint has alleged that CSE has reproduced a large number of copyrighted articles of The Mint on www.indiaenvirnomentalportal.org.in. 

These allegations by the mint have been made by its editor on its blog

GOOGLE THUMBNAILS INFRINGE COPYRIGHTS?

Two German court rulings that Google thumbnail images infringe copyright. Since there is no duty on owners of copyright images to let search engine indexing robots know what files to avoid, the need to avoid infringing copyright rests firmly on Google's shoulders.

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT BY MAJOR NEWSPAPERS

Blogs have become very popular on the Internet. Recent reports show that numerous newspapers are downloading and using photograps which have been clicked by bloggers and put up on blogs. This is a violation of copyright whic is vested with the individuals who got those photographs.

Major papers like Times of India, Hindustan Times along with numerosu local newspapers are guilty of the same. 

But the question arises as to how much protection can the bloggers avail of. To be practical, it is a very diffcult thing to monitor the usage of photographs on Blogs. The newspaper agency has to just ensure that they use a photograph of a blog which is owned by someone in another country. That individual wuld nt even know of the misuse as he doesnt get copies of tthe ppaper at his country. 

Stringent measure are called for to discourage and to prevent the same.

HARRY POTTER

A suit was filed by J.K. Rowling (author of Harry Potter series) and Times Warner against RDR Books for infringement of their Intellectual Property Rights. A website called Harry Potter Lexicon was created by Steven Jan Vander Ark, who is a librarian by profession. The lexicon lists characters, places, creatures, spells, potions and even a time line. The website is a very popular one among Harry Potter fans and Rowling had even given it an award as the best fan site. Mr. Vander Ark with the help of RDR Books decided to make a hard copy of the contents of the website. This induced Rowling along with Times Warner, who own the trade marks and copyright for Harry Potter file a case against RDR Books claiming that such a publication would hurt and infringe upon Rowling’s own copyright as she wanted to publish a lexicon of the same order in the near future.

The principle in law which is in question is the fair use doctrine, which allows the limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the right holders. Has Mr. Vander Ark infringed upon the rights of Rowling? 

The judge had ruled that Vander Ark had indeed infringed the rights of J.K. Rowling, thereby giving ruling the case in her favour. The matter seemed to have gone agisnt the defendents due the fact that a lot of material seems to have been copied verbatim by Vader Ark.

This judgement has created a serious precedent for derivative works as the original authors will try to stop people from publishing works based on the original content, thereby not recognising the work and labour of people who put in their own skill and labour to create derivate works. They too have rights and this must be recognised as well.