AMITY LAW SCHOOL

PROJECT WORK

Copyright Law: Economic & Moral rights of an Author

SUBMITTED BY:
Name: Shrishty Singh
Enrollment no.: A3221618019
Course: B.com LLB(H)
 TABLE OF CONTENT

S.NO. CONTENT

1. Abstract
2. Introduction: Rights protected by Copyright
3. Economic Rights:
● Right of Reproduction
● Right of Distribution
● Right to Communicate work to the public
● Right to make cinematograph film or sound recording in respect
of work
● Right to make translation of the work
● Right to make adaptation
● Right of Distribution
4. Moral Rights:
● Right of Paternity
● Right of Integrity
5. Case Laws
6. Can Moral Rights be waived off by the author?
7. Conclusion
ABSTRACT
Copyright Law seeks to promote human creativity and confers several rights on the owner.
India incorporated Moral and Economic rights into the Copyright Law framework by way of
Copyright Act, 1957. These rights have been recognised by Berne Convention, 1886, seeking
to standardize the rights available to copyright holders across different countries. The same
has been recognised by the TRIPS and the other various domestic laws. The TRIPS
recognised the rights under their Article 9 as that the Member States do not have any
obligation to protect moral rights of authors. The Moral and Economic rights have been
provided via Section 57 and 14 of the Copyright Act, 1957 respectively.
This paper provides a detailed study on the rights related to copyright, i.e, both Moral and
Economic rights. It further deals with the issues how the same has been looked into the
various courts.

INTRODUCTION: Rights protected by Copyright

Copyright law deals with the purpose of recognising different types of works to attribute certain
rights to its creator (author). Copyright is a protection given to creators of certain types of works
as a tribute and an acknowledgement to their creative intellectual input and labour applied. 1 The
objective of Copyright has always been the protection of Copyright has always been protection
of the interest of the creators coupled with proclamation of knowledge and information.
The Copyright Act, 1957 recognises creative labour of the author and protects the original
literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and cinematograph films and sound recordings
from unauthorized uses as provided under Section 13 of the Act. For a work to qualify the
Copyright protection, it has to fulfill the criteria provided by the Copyright Act, 1957.
The Copyright Act provides both Economic and Moral rights. Economic rights allow right
owners to derive financial reward from the use of their works by others. Moral rights allow
authors and creators to take certain actions to preserve and protect their link with their work. The
author or creator may be the owner of the economic rights or those rights may be transferred to
one or more copyright owners provided that many countries do not approve of the transfer of
Moral rights.

1 Ladbroke V. William Hill, [1964] 1 All E.R. 465

“Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any
scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author” 2. -Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, Article 27(2)

ECONOMIC RIGHTS
Economic rights are those rights which help the creators/authors reap economic benefits. These
rights have been recognized in one form or the other since the fifteenth century. 3 As per the
Section 14 of the Copyright Act, 1957, the creators/authors of Copyright enjoys the rights with
respect to the original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works and cinematograph films and
sound recordings.4
The owner may decide what to do with his property and how it is to be used, and others can use
it lawfully only if they have the owner’s permission, often through a license. The owner’s use of
the property must, however, respect the legally recognized rights and interests of other members
of society. So the owner of a copyright protected work may decide how to use the work, and may
prevent others from using it without permission. The right of copyright owners to prevent others
from making copies of their works without permission. It is the most basic right, i.e, Right to
Reproduction, which is protected by the Copyright legislation.

1. Right of Reproduction:
As per Section 14(a)(i) of the Copyright Act, 1957, the copyright owner in a literary,
dramatic, musical, artistic, cinematograph film and sound recording work has an
exclusive right to reproduce the work or authorize the reproduction of work in any
material form. Under the Act, the right to reproduction of literary work also includes
storing it in electronic form. This essentially means that storing into a computer or
compact disk will amount to reproduction, even though the copy is in a different form
when compared with the original. It is important to note that the law is silent on the
nature and duration of storage to constitute reproduction.

2 http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
3 Sterling J A L, World Copyright Law (Sweet & Maxwell, 100 Avenue Road, London NW3 3PF), 1998, p.279
4 http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l195-Copyright-Law-in-India.html
 The same right has been properly elaborated in the case law, namely, Escorts
Construction Equipment Ltd & Anr V. Action Construction Equipment Pvt Ltd & Anr 5.
The claim of plaintiffs was that the defendant’s creation was the three dimensional
reproduction of the drawings for which the plaintiffs had the copyright protection. The
point of interest through this judgement was the court prevented manufacture of
machinery. The object of copyright protection is to protect the creativity of the author and
to ensure that no one other than the author commercially exploited this creativity.

2. Right of Distribution:
Apart from the right to reproduce the work, the author is also vested with the right to
distribute the work. It is the right to put copies of the copyrighted work into the
commercial market.6 The scope and extent of this right is not uniform, i.e., it differs with
the work. The right of distribution usually terminates upon first sale or transfer of
ownership of a particular physical copy. This means, for example, that when the
copyright owner of a book sells or otherwise transfers ownership of a copy of the book,
the owner of that copy may give the book away or even resell it without the copyright
owner’s further permission.
If anyone other than the copyright owner issues the work to the public without the
authority of the owner, then he is an infringer of this right but if he reproduces the
published work without the authority of the copyright owner then he violates other rights
of copyright and not the right to issue copies to the public. For eg: A has already sold the
copies of his work in the market and B subsequently markets pirated copies of A's work.
B has infringed the right of reproduction of A and not the right to issue copy to the
public.

3. Right to Communicate work to the public:

Another important right conferred on the author of a work is the right to communicate his
work to the public.7 The exclusive right to do this vest with the author, irrespective of the

5 Escorts Construction Equipment Ltd & Anr V. Action Construction Equipment Pvt Ltd & Anr., AIR 1999 Delhi
73
6 Lionel Bently & Brad Sherman, Intellectual Property Law (Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai
Singh Road, New Delhi 110 001), 2003, p.130
7 As per Section 2(ff) “communication to the public”
 nature of the work.8 According to Section 2 (ff) of the Copyright Act, “Communication to
Public” has been defined as making the work available to the public for their enjoyment,
irrespective of whether they actually enjoy it. It has been specifically provided in the Act
that communication through satellite and other cable means will also come within the
purview of communication to the public.
This has been further explained in the case law Garware Plastics and Polyester Ltd, and
others V. M/s Telelink and others9. Bombay High Court through its judgement tried to
bring out the meaning of the term Communication to Public. In this case the plaintiffs
were producers of cinematograph films and the defendants were cable operators who
telecasted those films, for a prescribed fee, without authorization of the plaintiff. This
was further challenged in the court as it was violating their right under Section 14 of the
Copyright Act, 1957.
A particular criteria was decided after the court brought out the test whether the act of the
defendants would amount to communicating the plaintiffs work to the public or not. The
following criteria was:
● Character of the audience and whether it can be described as public or private,
● The audience is private or public in relation to the owner of the work,
● Whether permitting such performance will cause monetary loss to the owner of
the work which he ought to gain out of the exploitation of his intellectual
property.

4. Right to make cinematograph film or sound recording in respect of work:

Cinematograph film and sound recording includes a literary, dramatic or musically work
only with license granted for the purpose by the owner of the copyright in the work. If
any cinema or sound recording is made with such a license then an independent copyright
subsists in cinema or sound recording as a protected work under the act.
It was further explained in the case law, Indian express newspaper Pvt. Ltd. V. Dr.
Jagmohan Mundhara10, that there cannot be a copyright in an event which has actually

8 Articles 11, 11bis, 11ter, 14 and 14bis of the Berne Convention, 1886
9 Garware Plastics and Polyester Ltd, and others V. M/s Telelink and others AIR 1989 Bom 331
10 Indian express newspaper Pvt. Ltd. V. Dr. Jagmohan Mundhara AIR 1985 Bom 229
 taken place. Bombay High Court decided that there is a difference between simple
reporting of an event and reporting after daring and risky investigation of the facts.

5. Right to make translation of the work:

Translating or adapting a work protected by copyright also requires permission from the
right owner. Translation means the expression of a work in a language other than that of
the original version.

6. Right to make adaptation:

Adaptation is generally understood as the modification of a work to create another work,
for example adapting a novel to make a film, or the modification of a work for different
conditions of exploitation. For eg: by adapting a textbook originally written for university
students to make it suitable for a lower level.
The meaning of Adaptation is:
● in relation to a dramatic work, the conversion of the work into a non-dramatic
work;
● in relation to a literary work or an artistic work, the conversion of the work into a
dramatic work by way of performance in public or otherwise;
● in relation to a literary or dramatic work, any abridgment of the work or any
version of the work in which the story or action in conveyed wholly or mainly by
means of pictures in a form suitable for reproduction in a book, or in a newspaper,
magazine or similar periodical;
● in relation to a musical work, any arrangement or transcription of the work;
● in relation to any work, any use of such work involving its rearrangement or
alteration.

7. Right of Distribution:
The copyright owner may distribute his work in any manner he deems fit, he can even
license it if he wishes or give it out on rent. The owner is at liberty to assign certain
specific rights to somebody while retaining the rest. For eg: he may assign the right to
make translations.
MORAL RIGHTS
Moral rights are basically english translation of a French phrase “Droit Moral”. They are
representative of social values concerning authorship, creativity and artistic work. They are
based on a belief that artistic creation is something more than an attempt to earn a livelihood. 11
Moral rights flow from the fact that a literary or artistic work reflects the personality of the
creator, just as much as the economic rights reflect the author's need to keep body and soul
together.12 The creativity impulse and the work are of value to society, through his work, the
artist provides an important service to society. By recognizing these aspects of artistic life, moral
rights bring a culture focus to copyright law.13
Section 57 of the Copyright Act, 1957 defines two “moral rights” of an author. They are:
● The right to claim authorship of a work (sometimes called the right of paternity or
the right of attribution):
The right of paternity refers to the right of an author to claim authorship of work and a
right to prevent all others from claiming authorship of his work.

● The right to object to any distortion or modification of a work, or other derogatory

action in relation to a work, which would be prejudicial to the author’s honor or
reputation (sometimes called the right of integrity):
The right of integrity empowers the author to prevent distortion, mutilation or other
alterations of his work, or any other action in relation to said work, which would be
prejudicial to his honor or reputation.

These and other similar rights granted in national laws are generally known as the moral rights of
authors. The proviso to section 57 states that the author will not have the right to restrain or
claim damages in respect of any adaptation of a computer programme by a lawful possessor of a
copy of a computer programme, to utilise the computer programme for which it was supplied and
to make backup copies as a temporary protection against loss. By the proviso, this section also
confers the special rights on the authors of computer programmes.

11 Anurag K. Agrawal & S.S.Sagar Priyathan, Moral Rights in Copyright Law

12 Stephen M.Stewart, International Copyright & Neighbouring Rights (1983), P.59
13 Anurag k.Agrawal & S.S.Sagar Priyathan, Moral Rights in Copyright Law
CASE LAWS
In the case of KPM Sobharam v/s M/s Rattan Prakashan Mandir,14The plaintiff, an author of
certain books instituted the suit against the defendants for injunction, restraining them from
printing, publishing and selling the specified books, rendition of accounts for the illegal gains
made by the defendants for all unauthorized publications, and, for damages under the provisions
of sections 55 and 57 of the Act. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants had changed the
original works’ title and made a distortion and mutilation of the plaintiff’s work prejudicial to the
plaintiff’s reputation. The court granted injunction restraining the defendants from printing,
publishing and selling the goods written by the plaintiff till final disposal of the suit.

In the case of Phoolan Devi v. Shekar Kapoor15, the plaintiff claimed that the basis of the film,
being a novel dictated by the illiterate plaintiff herself had been considerably mutilated by the
film producer. The plaintiff sought a restraint order against the defendant, from exhibiting
publicly or privately, selling, entering into film festivals, promoting, advertising, producing in
any format or medium, wholly or partially, the film “Bandit Queen” in India or elsewhere. It was
later on held by that court that “the defendant had no right to exhibit the film as produced
violating the privacy of the plaintiff's body and person. No amount of money can compensate the
indignities, torture, and feeling of guilt and shame which has been ascribed to the plaintiff in the
film. Therefore, the defendants were refrained from exhibiting the film in its censored version till
the final decision of the suit.”

CAN MORAL RIGHTS BE WAIVED OFF BY THE AUTHOR?

The answer to the aforesaid is elaborated under the case law Mannu Bhandari V. Kala Vikas
Pictures Ltd.16, it was held by Delhi High Court that these rights (moral rights) are independent
of author's copyright and the remedies open to the author. In other words, Section 57 confers
additional rights on the author of a literary work as compared to the owner of a general
copyright. Thus even though an author may sell his economic rights to a publisher for
publication, the moral rights shall remain with him which cannot be taken away from him.
A modification will be found to violate Section 57 if it:
14 KPM Sobharam v/s M/s Rattan Prakashan Mandir AIR 1983 Del. 461
15 Phoolan Devi v. Shekar Kapoor (1995-PTC Del)
16 Mannu Bhandari v. Kala Vikash Pictures Pvt. Ltd. AIR 1987 Delhi 13, ILR 1986 Delhi 191
 ● Results in the modified work appearing quite different from the original; or
● Amounts to a perversion of the original.

CONCLUSION
In retrospection, in a welfare state it is the duty of the State to ensure that there is dissemination
of knowledge and information to such an extent that it benefits all. At the same time it is the duty
of the State to protect those intellectual labours which is the root cause of this information. This
balance is being ensured with the help of copyright law.
Under section 57 of the Act, the author of a work has the right to claim the authorship of the
work. He also has a right to restrain the distortion or mutilation of his work or to claim damages
for the distortion even after assigning the copyright. The author of a computer programme is also
protected under this section. The moral rights will subsist with the programmer even after
assigning the copyright in a software programme. If the assignee distorts the software as a result
of which the programmer’s reputation is harmed, the programmer can sue for restraining such
distortion and for damages. Therefore, even if the contract for assignment of software makes a
provision for assignment of all economic and moral rights, the assignor can at any time exercise
his special rights granted under section 57 of the Act.