Copyright: Extension and its relevance

Of late, there has been an effort in the United States to extend the term of copyright which has already been expanded two decades ago by the derisively called Mickey Mouse legislation, as it was perceived and quite truly that it was done with the purpose of giving the benefit to the copyright protection to Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters, stories, concepts and creative products.

The term 'copyright' in India is currently sixty years after the death of author, and in case of corporate ownership of copyright – like newspapers, news channels, contracted creative work, etc. – sixty years from the date of creation.

Copyright is typically granted for intellectual property in books, articles, speeches, songs, music, dance, drama, poetry, films, photographs, sculptures, paintings, computer programs, etc.

The purpose of copyright protection for a certain period of time is to grant exclusivity to the creator or owner of the intellectual property to be able to commercially exploit the work.

Once the term is over for any copyright protected work, it comes in public domain and can be used by any person.

That is the primary difference in copyright and trademark protection. A trademark gets protection forever, though in renewable periods of ten years in India. For all practical purposes, a trademark is for all times to come, and thus the clamor in corporates to get trademark protection for most of the intellectual property which is otherwise protected by copyright like slogans, taglines, etc.

In the US, currently, the copyright law gives protection for 70 years after the death of author, and for 95 years after publication for corporate authorship.

This term was enhanced in 1998. Prior to that, the term was 50 years and 75 years respectively. Now, again there is discussion about extending the term further.

The effort in the US to extend copyright term has been strongly opposed by groups which are backing the idea that the speeches and other music and songs which are not usually owned by film and music studios and other corporates should be in public domain to allow better accessibility to the masses which can improve appreciation and dissemination of these recordings.

The term of a copyright has been contentious as it is said that the protection given to the author or owner of a copyrightable work should not be for an indefinite period but for a limited time period which is expected to be reasonable and which can, in turn, give proper value to the society.

As value to society is uncountable and hence subjective in nature, it is not clearly objective to arrive at a specific time period which can be allowed for copyright protection, however, this depends on the sovereign power which governs the copyright law and determines the term in that particular territorial jurisdiction. This is the reason why it is not a universally accepted term and can vary from one jurisdiction to another. To have universalisation of the system there has been an effort made in the WTO - TRIPS agreement so that there is a benchmark – currently of fifty years – however, several jurisdictions grant much longer term as in the case of the US and also the European Union.

The minimum term has to be guaranteed. These jurisdictions have been persistently trying to enhance the term of copyright protection to give more value to the corporates on copyrights particularly in music, films and other artistic and literary works.

In India, in the recent past, super star Amitabh Bachchan had lamented the sixty-year term, which he criticized to be too short. He made this remark in the context of the copyright protection given to the famous works of his father, Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan, the legendary poet, very well-known for Madhushala.

Although there can always be a case for enhancing the copyright term period, in my opinion, in the fast-changing digital world, protecting copyright is itself a challenge and hence, it is not in the interest of the public at large to keep on extending the term.

There are, at the same time, movements going on advocating and demanding no copyright protection. Some of these movements are also called copyleft with open source access and free availability. There are no restrictions or very limited restrictions for further use. It may remain jurisdiction-specific and with protectionist tendencies on the rise, the universal term may not become a reality.

The author is a professor at IIM-A,
akagarwal@iima.ac.in