COPYRIGHT ISSUES ON INTERNET

ABSTRACT
Internet is the world’s largest market place where every type of infringement in intellectual
property happens. The Internet seems to be a challenging place for the legal landscape. This
happened within two decades where the hand of the Internet has raised and with that also
came the drawbacks. Copyright aims to protect the author's creative work, but because of
infringement, their rights are denied in the online portal. Firstly, in this article, the convention
that is made to protect copyright is discussed. Following which the various types of
infringement is discussed, it includes linking, framing, catching. Not all activities done on the
Internet are infringement. Acts that are not an infringement of copyrights is also included.
Law is dynamic but not as rapid as internet developments. Before the laws are passed with
regard to these advancements, certain recommendations are made to the owners of the
webpage to be considered in order to avoid linking and framing.

COPYRIGHT ISSUES ON INTERNET

“The Copyright Bargain: a balance between
protection for the Artist and Rights for the consumer.”
– Robin Gross

INTRODUCTION
COPYRIGHT is intended to be the “Engine of free expression”. Copyright is the exclusive
right granted to the author of the original work. An artistic, literally or musical work is the
brainchild of its author, the fruit of his labour, and so, considered to be his property. It is
highly-priced by all civilised nations that it is thought worthy of protection by national laws
and international conventions relating to copyright. A foundational element of copyright law
is that it does not grant the author literary work protection on ideas and facts. Copyright is
volatile in nature. Copyright is considered a human right. Article 27 recognised copyright as a
human right in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
Information can be got through the internet in a snap of a finger. The foremost CEO of
Microsoft, Bill Gates, once said, “When the world is becoming a global village, the Internet
is its Time Square”. Internet is becoming both boon and bane to this developing technical
world. Simultaneously along with the developments on the internet, the drawbacks also
increase. One such drawback that is to be discussed here is the copyright issue on the internet.
Infringement of copyright on the internet has become more prevalent in contemporary time.

CONVENTIONS ON COPYRIGHT
BERNE CONVENTION
The International Convention for the protection of literary or artistic works first signed at
Berne in 1886. This was signed to protect non-industrial intellectual property. This
convention protects the economic rights of the author and the moral rights of an author. Berne
Convention has various salient features, namely- non-discrimination, reciprocity, automatic
protection, the possibility of reservation, protection extended only to expression, not an idea.
Berne convention is the basic copyright convention, and India has acceded to this convention.

UNIVERSAL COPYRIGHT CONVENTION

The Universal Copyright Convention was developed by United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation in the year 1952 as an alternative to the Berne
Convention for those states that disagreed with aspects of it but still wished to participants in
some form of multilateral copyright protection. The Universal Copyright Convention was less
stringent than the Berne Convention. However, this also concentrated on the economic rights
of the author.

ROME CONVENTION
In the year 1961 Rome Convention came into force. This convention encouraged protection
under fine arts, musical industries. This convention protects rights closely associated with
copyright and also neighbouring rights. They brought in three types of neighbouring rights.
i. Performer’s right.
ii. Broadcasting organisation
iii. Phonogram rights.

WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATY

In the year 1996, the World Intellectual Property Organisation Diplomatic Conference on
certain Copyright and related Rights questions adopted two treaties.
 WIPO Copyright treaty (WCT)
  WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT)
WCT deals with the protection of a computer program, a compilation of data or other
material. This treaty recognised the tremendous impact of the development of technologies
on authors of copyright.

INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT ON INTERNET

 Securitisation in cyberspace has become an essential need. Cybercrime is divided into three
parts. Infringement on copyright on the internet falls under Offence against a computer. The
various copyright infringements are:-
i. Linking.
ii. Framing.
iii. Caching.

LINKING
Linking allows a website user to visit another location on the internet from the original page.
This technique gives a unique communicative power to the internet. There are also various
types of linking they are:- Surface linking, Deep linking and Inline linking.
In a case, the Microsoft corporation provided specific hyperlinks to specific pages in the
Plaintiff’s site. The policies, service information and advertisements in the plaintiff’s website
were bypassed due to such hyperlinks, and hence a suit was filed.  An out of court settlement
was subsequently made, and Microsoft sold that entertainment portion of its site to Ticket
Master. The decisions of the Courts were not unanimous with the treatment of deep linking.
There were judicial cleavages in this regard.

FRAMING
The related practice of "framing" may also serve to undermine the rights of Web site owners. 
The use of "frames" allows a Web page creator to divide the Web browser window into
several separate areas. The programmer of the Web page can dictate what goes into each
frame. Commonly, a Web site designer creates a page that at all times displays one frame
containing the name of the Web site and other identifying information. The other frames are
then controlled by the user. 
In Future Dontics, Inc vs Applied Anagramics Inc, the plaintiff was granted the exclusive use
of a telephone number and a business's service mark. The plaintiff later developed a website
to advertise the business. The defendant reproduced the Future Dontic site on a separate
frame in the defendant’s website. The Court held that it amounts to an infringement of
Copyright.

CACHING
Caching involves storing the webpage in your RAM for future reference. Caching at the
server level, also known as "proxy caching," is used by several more popular Internet service
providers such as AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve. Caching is where the original is copied as
cache. Caching has both positive and negative impacts on the internet.

JURISDICTION
In the cases of infringement of copyright on the internet, the hard part is to bring in the case's
jurisdiction. However, the Budapest treaty on Cybercrime failed to settle jurisdiction.
Jurisdiction is inevitable to give justice. In order to decide jurisdiction, it is important to
consider three aspects. i) Power to prescribe the jurisdiction. ii) Power to adjudicate. iii)
Power to enforce this is decided by the Bladimir Levin case. Keeping jurisdiction as a shield,
many infringers escape from the law's eyes even the three major conventions are silent about
the jurisdiction of copyright infringement on the internet.

RECOMMENDATIONS
As the demand for the protection of intellectual property on the internet increases, certain
recommendations can be adopted to avoid any such infringement practices.
 A Common Disclaimer may be inserted stating “information is being linked or framed
and that no relationship, affiliation, association or sponsorship is implied from the
encapsulation or linking of material”.
 They can either completely disallow linking or keep certain restrictions on linking.
 The website owners can clearly state that any linking that is made to the original
webpage shall be removed on the request made. The owner shall remove once the
removal request is made.
 Any website owner should get a license for using the trademark in the frame or links.
A statement shall be made in the owner's disclaimer that the third party owns the
copyright and trademark.
 The software can be used to avoid linking except for specified URL.
  Software is available to avoid copying text and images.
Linking and framing these unwanted links make the content on the internet less. Copyright
law is intended to provide protection to authors creative work. It is obliged to protect the
author’s rights whatever mode it may be.

EXCEPTIONS TO INFRINGEMENTS
 Fair use of text and images to a certain level is not an infringement of copyright. It
can be used for criticism, research, report or comment. This fair use is acceptable and
not an infringement.
 Copyright protection is given to an author throughout his lifetime plus sixty years.
After that, the author's work comes to Public Domain, and use of that work after the
protection period is in no way an infringement.
  The best way to avoid infringing on others work is by getting a license for the work.

COPYRIGHT ACT 1957

The copyright act of 1957 explicitly does not have the term “internet”. But under chapter III
of the act, section 13 describes works in which copyright subsists. This section gives certain
classes of work to which copyright protection is given. It includes original literary, dramatic,
musical and artistic works. But all the rights and protection which is applicable to an owner
under section 14 is also applicable to a digital product. So thus, any infringement on the
internet shall be considered a copyright issue in India.

CONCLUSION
The development of the world wide web is so rapid, and hence many legal issues entered the
court. The ultimate aim of the copyright law is to balance between the right to own creative
expression and the right to access that information. The development in the internet and
communication in no way is going to reduce and hence it is important for the courts to cope
with the developing world. The Internet seems to be a great challenge to the legal world
under cybercrime. As stated, there are various ways of infringement which itself shows how
difficult it is to bring to courts. Here jurisdiction also plays a crucial role. Here the burden is
completely on the legislation to bring in new laws that constitute these infringement cases. It
would be better to amend the copyright act as it lagging behind the development in the world.
The article is good and less plagiarised ready for publication