2012

Legality of Music Sharing on Internet(In Light of Copyright Act)

Cyber Law Assignment # 2

Submitted ByShwetaShukla (2011A25) Aparna P (2011A46) Anubha Bhargava (2011B21) AkashSinghal (2011B43) NeelimaAravind (2011D

Introduction Relevant sections of The Copyright Act, 1957:

Copyright is the right given by law to the creators of literary, dramatic, musical and a variety of other works of mind. It ordinarily means the creator alone has the right to make copies of his or her works or alternatively, prevents all others from making such copies. The basic idea behind such protection is the premise that innovations require incentives. Copyright recognises this need and gives it a legal sanction. According to the section 2 (p), "musical work" means any combination of melody and harmony or either of them, printed, reduced to writing or otherwise graphically produced or reproduced. A copyright is automatically given to authors when they create an original work, though the author can also apply for a Certificate of Copyright through the Copyright Office. According to Section 14 (a) of the Act, the copyright holder has the exclusive right (i) to reproduce the work in any material form (ii) to publish the work; (iii)to perform the work in public; (iv) to produce, reproduce, perform or publish any translation of the work ; (v) to make any cinematograph film or a record in respect of the work ; (vi) to communicate the work by radio broadcast or to communicate to the public by a loud-speaker or any other similar instrument the broadcast of the work; (vii) to make any adaptation of the work; (viii)to do in relation to a translation or an adaptation of the work any of the acts specified in relation to the work in clauses (i) to (vi) ; Exemption: Section 52 (Certain acts not to be infringement of copyright): Most copyright laws have a fair use clause, which means that works can be used without the authors express permission in certain situations. Indian law states that these include the purpose of research or private study, criticism or review, reporting current events, in connection with judicial proceeding, performance by an amateur club or society if the performance is given to a non paying audience, and the making of sound recordings of literary, dramatic or musical works under certain conditions.

 Enforcement: Section 63: Copyright infringement is a criminal offense in India. The minimum penalty for knowingly infringing upon a copyright is six months in jail which may extend to up to 3 years and a fine of 50,000 rupees, which may extend up to 2 lakh rupees. Provided that the court may, for adequate and special reasons to be mentioned in the judgment, impose a sentence of imprisonment for a term of less than six months or a fine of less than fifty thousand.

The Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2012:

The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, and will become law as soon as the President gives her assent and it is published in the Gazette of India. According to this: No alterations are allowed from the original song, and alteration is qualified as alteration in the literary or musical work. So no imaginative covers in which the lyrics are changed or in which the music is reworked are allowed without the copyright owners permission. Only note-for-note and word-for-word covers are allowed. Music and movie companies have rights to place digital locks, and under some limited circumstances users have the right to break them. But if the locks are difficult to break, the users have no choice but to live with the lock, despite having a legal right.

Copyright Infringement Cases

Napster Case Napster was an online music trading website which came into existence around early 1999 by Shawn Fanning. It was created for the sole reason of difficulty in finding necessary MP3 files in those days. It included three functions search engine, file sharing (the ability to trade MP3 files directly, without having to use a centralized server for storage), and an Internet Relay Chat (IRC), which was a means of finding and chatting with other MP3 users while online. Later it became quite popular among college students with access to high-speed internet connections. However in April 2000, the heavy metal rock group Metallica sued Napster for copyright infringement. Metallica also included several universities in their suit claiming that they violated Metallicas music copyrights by allowing their students to

illegally trade songs using university servers. Napster responded that under the Fair Use Act owners of compact discs are permitted to use them as they wish. Thus if an owner of the disc wishes to copy it into a computer file, he or she should be allowed to do so and in case this file happens to be accessible on the Internet, then others can also access or download it without being guilty of a crime. Napster further claimed that since it made no profit off the trades, it owed no money in royalties. However, the Ninth Circuit held that Napster's operation constituted copyright infringement.

Calcutta High Court orders for blocking 104 Indian illegal Music Sharing sites (March, 2012) Indian government has constantly been in action against music sharing sites prevalent in abundance over the internet. Government and courts all over the world are taking action against pirated media sites present online. Recently in March, 2012 Indian Music Industry (IMI) which is a consortium of 142 music companies in India has obtained an order from Calcutta High Court directing all Internet Service Providers in India (around 387) to block 104 illegal music sharing sites in India. Initially IMI had asked for blocking if 300 illegal music sharing sites; however based on the content of pirated content found on those sites the count was reduced to 104. Court has passed an Injunction order asking all major ISPs in India to block user access to these websites by taking steps like DNS name blocking on ISP level, IP address blocking via routers and DPI based URL blocking. A similar action was taken several months ago against songs.pk.

US Court reimposes $220,000 music piracy fine In 2005, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) accused Jammie Thomas Rasset for illegal song sharing on Kazaa (now defunct). The RIAA had found more than 1700 files on her Kazaa account and also claimed that MediaSentry (acting on behalf of Kazaa) had warned her twice of potential infringement of copyright; however she never responded. The case eventually went to court where Ms. Thomas-Rasset denied using Kazaa but acknowledged that she did use the tereastarr" username associated with the offending Kazaa account regularly elsewhere on the net. The jury found her guilty and in the latest case said that a $9,250 fine per song was "not as severe and oppressive as to be wholly disproportionate to the offence and obviously unreasonable".

Some common examples of Online Music Copyright Infringement: o You make an MP3 copy of a song because the CD you bought expressly permits you to do so. But then you put your MP3 copy on the Internet, using a file-sharing network, so that millions of other people can download it o Even if you dont illegally offer recordings to others, you join a file-sharing network and download unauthorized copies of all the copyrighted music you want for free from the computers of other network members o In order to gain access to copyrighted music on the computers of other network members, you pay a fee to join a file-sharing network that isnt authorized to distribute or make copies of copyrighted music. Then you download unauthorized copies of all the music you want o You transfer copyrighted music using an instant messenging service o You have a computer with a CD burner, which you use to burn copies of music you have downloaded onto writable CDs for all of your friends o Somebody you dont even know e-mails you a copy of a copyrighted song and then you turn around and e-mail copies to all of your friends

Measures adopted to fight Music Piracy

Music piracy is rampant mainly because of websites that allow free downloads of songs online. The reason many download music from pirated websites is because: They do not want to buy the entire album; when they like just few songs in it. Price of an album is way too high in customers minds. They dont see anything ethically wrong in downloading music

Some of the measures currently adopted o fight piracy:Service providers especially use a model for allowing customers to download songs to their mobile phones: 1. Advertisement revenue sharing model: Google has a tie-up with music producers where songs can be downloaded free and advertisement revenue generated is shared by the producers and google. 2. Package deal:

Nokia mobile comes with a package where users can download songs (unlimited) for a particular period from the nokia music store 3. Streaming: Myspace offers services like creating playlists and listening to music online. It is a joint venture by well known music labels 4. Customized models: There are also services like spotifywhich give free music with advertisements and in case user is willing to pay, premium membership is given where there are no advertisements. 5. Other measures: Legal enforcement with hard punishments for the guilty Increasing awareness; and educating school children on ethically correct practices Self help booths which are Bluetooth enabled to transfer songs at a price (like vending machines) Mobile apps that have to be paid for;however pricing should be nominal Realistic pricing and superior quality of music CDs and albums

Conclusion References:
Burgunder, Lee B. 2002. "Reflections on Napster: The Ninth Circuit Takes a Walk on the Wild Side."American Business Law Journal 39 (summer): 683707.
http://sharepress.org/calcutta-high-court-orders-for-blocking-104-indian-illegal-musicsharing-sites.html http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19572817 http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law The Copyright Act, 1957

http://www.ehow.com/list_6688202_music-copyright-laws-india.html copyright.gov.in/Documents/STUDY ON COPYRIGHT PIRACY IN INDIA.pdf http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012