Ek Tha Tiger in Copyright Tussle

Salman Khan's recent block buster film Ek Tha Tiger is now engaged in copyright battle with script writer Anand Pande. Anand Pande accuses that story of the movie Ek Tha Tiger is a copy of his original work titled "Ghost War" .

He submits that he has shown his work to Yash Raj Films, producers of Ek tha tiger who after rejecting the story has incorporated the same into their new hit movie.

Following his complaint Bombay High court Division bench of Justice A S Oka and Sadhana Jadhav has directed the police to conduct a probe into the complaint and submit their report before 7th November.

Anand has also registered a complaint with the Writers Association. Ek tha Tiger is an Indian romantic action thriller film which has accounted a total gross profit of Rs 300 crore.

source

"Man of Steel " stays with DC comics

DC Comics, famous comic book publishers would retain their rights to "Superman comic" after a Judge ruled that the heir's of one of the Super hero's co creators signed away their ability to reclaim copyrights 20 years ago.
Super man - the Man of steel, was introduced by Shuster and Jerry Sigel as a comic book series in 1938 and since then have been entertaining reader irrespective of age.
DC Comics sued the heirs of artist Joe Shuster in 2010, seeking a ruling that they are not entitled to reclaim Superman's copyrights, stating that Shuster's sister and brother have relinquished their right to reclaim copyrights in 1992 in exchange for annual pension payments from DC Comics.
The ruling means that DC comics and its owner Warner Bothers can retain all rights to continue using the character in books, films, television and other mediums. This is particularly relevant as new superman film "Man of Steel" is to be screened in 2013 

Source:  www.hollywoodrepoter.com  

DC Books Win Copyrights Over Superman

WIPO members to meet for discussing text on Treaty for visually impaired

WIPO members are gathering this week to advance work on a draft treaty on exceptions to copyright for visually impaired readers.An inter-sessional meeting on limitations and exceptions for visually impaired persons and persons with print disabilities is taking place from 17-19 October.

Delegates are working on a revised working document  issued on 26 July, at the 24th session of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights 

Among the issues to discuss includes definition of accessible format copy, and of authorized entities, which refers to entities that address the needs of visually impaired persons including providing those persons with services relating to education, and information accessWorking Document for Vissually Impaired

Update: New Text on visually impaired treaty 

 After three days of discussion on treaty for visually impaired WIPO member yesterday closed their discussion after bring out another draft version of the text. 

New text have agreement on what should be the meaning of accessible format however points of disagreement remains as to nature and scope of obligations

Revised WIPO Vissually Impaired Treaty

Chinese writers sue Apple for copyright infringement

Apple is all over news again after a group of Chinese writers filed a copyright infringement against them in Beijing for unauthorizedly selling electronic version of their book  via App store.

Writers demanded a compensation of 1.6 million USD for violating their copyrights 34 different works. writers allege that the applications involved unlicensed electronic version of their book which have been heavily downloaded, causing huge economic loses to them while bringing profits to Apple as well as the application developers.

Apple however took the plea that they are a not the proper party to the suit and appealed for application developer to stand for the trial. 

Earlier same court have order Apple to pay 8270.30 USD as compensation for economic losses suffered by the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House for copyright infringements

EBC restrained from publishing its own injunction

Earlier we have reported about an injunction granted by the Lucknow District  against Westlaw India and Indlaw from infringing the copyrights of Eastern Book Company in their case reports "Supreme Court Cases". Report available here.

Now in an interesting move Legally India reports that the  Lucknow District court through another injunction restrained EBC from publicizing that they have been granted an injunction by the same court for alleged plagiarism.

Order: (translation available with Legally India). 

Copyright for Palance fabric design granted to Culp

As per the announcement made recently, by Culp Inc., the United States Copyright Office has granted copyright protection for Culp’s Palance fabric design. The effective date of Culp’s copyright registration is August 8, 2011.

 

Culp is the market leader for fabrics that encompass the essence of natural leather without actually being leather. Like many designs before it, the design, format, layout and shading used in the Palance fabric design combine to create a one-of-a-kind design unique to Culp. Culp is the owner of copyright rights in other popular fabric designs as well, including its Palomino, Wrangler, Stampede, Congo, and Gunslinger fabrics, all of which are protected by copyright registrations.

News Link 

Youtube to manually review some claims

Google-owned YouTube is set to alter its algorithms to reduce invalid copyright infringement claims on its video-sharing site and soon it will begin manually reviewing some claims instead of the system automatically blocking disputed footage.

One month before, the First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention was wrongly flagged by algorithms just after it aired. YouTube, the official streaming partner of the Democratic National Convention, had automatically put a copyright blocking message on the live-stream video of the event shortly after it ended.

Thabet Alfishawi, the rights management product manager for YouTube, addressing the issue of false positives and outright abuse of the system, said, “We’ve improved the algorithms that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed.”

The procedure till now.

Five years ago YouTube adopted a filtering system, which enabled rights holders to upload music and videos they own to a “fingerprinting” database. When YouTube account holders upload their videos, the algorithm known as Content ID scans new uploads against the copyright database for matches.If a full or partial match is detected, the alleged rights holder can have the video automatically removed, or it can place advertising on the video and make money every time somebody clicks on the video.

But if Content ID over-matches or a unauthorized person manages to feed the filter content it doesn’t own, a YouTube user could see her video hijacked through a false copyright claim because Content ID had largely functioned on auto-pilot.

The new rules that were announced yesterday, require the alleged rights holder to abandon the claim or file an official take-down notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if the uploader challenges the match. 

“Prior to today, if a content owner rejected that dispute, the user was left with no recourse for certain types of Content ID claims (e.g., monetize claims). Based upon feedback from our community, today we’re introducing an appeals process that gives eligible users a new choice when dealing with a rejected dispute,” Alfishawi said. “When the user files an appeal, a content owner has two options: release the claim or file a formal DMCA notification.”

News Link 

Just in Bollywood Style: Barfi!

“I am very proud to say Barfi is a completely original story. It’s very difficult to make original cinema and I take a lot of pride in saying Barfi is original. It baffles me why people are not appreciating the original plot, screenplay, characters and situations.” 

These were the words of the director of the Bollywood masterpiece Barfi!, Anurag Basu, after he faced a recent allegation of plagiarism post success of Barfi!.

Further, he said:

"Martin Scorcese and Quentin Tarantino have done the same. Does that make them a thief? Great moments of cinema that you’ve watched through the years, stay in your mind and they come out in your work. It doesn’t mean you’re copying anyone. Thank God The Artiste was not made by an Indian. If it had, it would have never gone to the Oscars.”

The Controversy. 

Since its release two weeks ago, several videos have spread through YouTube and social media sites highlighting a number of scenes that appear to draw heavily from international classics. 

Some scenes from the movie show stark resemblances with clips from Gene Kelly's hit " Singin' in the Rain" (1952), Jackie Chan's " Project A" (1983), Buster Keaton's " Cops" (1922) and " The Notebook" (2004) starring Ryan Gosling among others.

The plot has been likened to "Benny & Joon", the 1993 film starring Johnny Depp, while the soundtrack has drawn further comparisons with the musical score from "Amelie", the 2001 hit starring Audrey Tautou.

One of the clearest sources of inspiration is Charlie Chaplin: one scene shows Barfi dodging a policeman through a sliding door, just as the king of silent film did in 1917's "The Adventurer".

News from HT 

News from TOI 

Garcia registers copyright for “Innocence of Muslims”

After making an unsuccessful attempt of last week to convince a California state judge to order YouTube to remove the movie trailer, Cindy Lee Garcia, the actress in the anti-Muslim film “Innocence of Muslims” refiled her case in federal court on Wednesday. In the Wednesday's filing, Garcia added copyright claims to her suit of unfair business practices, fraud and slander.

She also demands the YouTube to take down the 14-minute trailer for the film. According to her pleadings in the suit, it is stipulated that YouTube cannot couch itself in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because the company did not remove the video, even though the copyright owner, Garcia, demanded such removal. She’s also suing the hundreds of people who have reposted the video on YouTube.

A representative for YouTube didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

This is a strange case, wherein, someone is trying to prove that by acting in a film and “authoring” a performance, she is entitled to a slice of the copyright. Typically, actors do not bring forth this type of lawsuit because, especially in Hollywood, they sign release forms before working. Such an agreement grants producers various rights. 

Some of those rights include freedom from libel claims. Such rights disallow actors from attempting to halt both the distribution and presentation of a film.

Garcia’s lawyer, says that the only thing her client signed was a document that would authorize Garcia’s participation in the film on the Internet Movie Database, a film content site. 

Prior to re-filing the lawsuit, Armenta registered Garcia’s performance at the U.S. Copyright Office. In her registration, Garcia noted that she delivered “a dramatic performance and it was fixed to film,” versus a work specifically made to hire, and thus she became a copyright holder. 

News Link

Michigan Singalong faces copyright issues

The producers and sponsors of the “The Pure Michigan Statewide Singalong” are facing the copyright infringement allegations from the creators of the platinum hit song “Good Time” on which it is based. However, they say that they hope to resolve a copyright dispute with the creators.

On Friday, a copyright claim from Songs Music Publishing led YouTube to take down the popular video of a statewide sing-along shot for Michigan’s tourism promotion agency. The song was intended to promote travel in the state.

The video of the singlong was produced by Jeff Barrett and Rob Bliss of Grand Rapids-based Status Creative. It uses the melody and adapts the lyrics of “Good Time,” written by Brian Lee and Matthew Thiessen. 

Mr. David Lorenz, the spokesman for Pure Michigan, (the nonprofit agency that promotes travel in the state) said he hopes talks between the producers and copyright holders will let Pure Michigan post the video again.
Source 

Just in Bollywood Style: Jodi Breakers

The iP aroUnd, from today has started a string of posts for movies' lovers- Just in Bollywood Style.

Just in Bollywood Style is the name given to posts that will reveal the Bollywood movies which are or were under scanner for being alleged as a direct-lift or facelift of some other original movie. 

The first post begins today with the movie Jodi Breakers. The movie was allegedly the copy of the year 2010 French film 'Heartbreakers'. 

According to the sources, the French producers have filed the case against five people - the producer, Prasar Visions Pvt Ltd, director Ashwini Chaudhary, the writer, the processing lab and Dariwala who claimed that the producers stole her idea. The first hearing took place on February 10 and today is the second hearing." 

The makers of Jodi Breakers had offered to let the Heartbreakers team read the entire script, provided they agree to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA), which the Heartbreakers team declined to sign.

News Link

IIPA demands changes under Canadian Copyright law

After a huge tussle over reforms under the Canadian copyright law, in June 2012, the debate came to an end when the Bill C-11 received royal assent. But, in a strange scene that appeared, despite the bill, being labelled as a “vital building block,” the copyright lobby that pressured the government to impose restrictive rules on digital locks and tougher penalties for copyright infringement, is already demanding further reforms that include rolling back many key aspects of the original bill.

This time, the manner of securing reforms is quite different from that of the last round of copyright reform, wherein national consultations and open committee hearings were adopted by the lobby groups. But this time, they are hoping to use secretive trade negotiations to forge legislative change. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), an umbrella organization that represents movie, music, and software associations, will urge the U.S. government to put some pressure on Canada to enact further reforms as part of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade negotiations.

Recently, the IIPA submitted its position on Canada’s entry to the TPP as part of a U.S. regulatory process. It takes the concern of the role of Internet providers in enforcing Canadian copyright law. The Canada follows the “notice-and-notice” approach, which requires providers to forward thousands of infringement allegation notices to their subscribers. It strikes a balance between effective enforcement and free speech, while preserving users’ privacy. This approach has attracted a global attention, with the countries like Chile adopting it under its domestic law. Despite this, the approach has been criticized by the IIPA, thereby calling for dramatic reforms. It argues that Canadian law “fails to provide meaningful incentives for network service providers to co-operate with copyright owners to deal with copyright infringements that take place in the digital network environment.” 

The copyright lobby demands Canada to implement measures that would require Internet providers “to take action to prevent recidivists from repeatedly using their services to commit copyright infringement.” In other words: a termination system that would cut off Internet access for subscribers accused of infringement.

Further, the IIPA also wants Canada to revert the statutory damages changes from Bill C-11, through which, it created a liability cap of $5,000 for non-commercial infringement. It claims that the non-commercial cap renders statutory damages “ineffective in achieving its goals of full compensation and deterrence in the online environment.”

Ek tha Tiger in copyright controversy !!

After a series of movies like Jannath 2 and Desi Boyz, now it is the turn of Salman Khan starrer Ek Tha Tiger. According to reports Salman's blockbuster has met with a copyright infringement case after one Mr Anand Pande has filed a complaint with Mumbai police alleging that the producers have stolen his script and made it into a movie without providing him adequate compensation.

However Hindustan times report that Neelesh Mishra, Co-writer of Ek Tha Tiger has vehemently denied the charges of copying and even challenged Anand Pande to prove his charges.

Mumbai Police have already lodged an FIR against the producer Aditya Chopra and Director Kabir Khan. Anand Pande has also filed  a complaint against them with the Film Writers Association.

Pnade has earlier approached the Mumbai Highcourt who directed the police to launch an FIR on the issue.

Source

Photocopying unit faces copyright infringement suit

Cambridge University Press, along with Oxford University Press and an online journals company Francis and Taylor have filed a copyright infringement suit against Delhi University and Rameshwari Photocopy Services, a photocopying shop located on the premises of Delhi School of Economics. The trio (Big P), alleges that the shop has been involved in creating illegal, pirated versions of books originally published by them. The shop has been accused of copyright infringement.

Big P has asked for damages amounting to sixty lakhs. Damages sought is on the assumption that every photocopy is a lost sale but aside from this dubious assumption inflated sums are usually a part of the shock and awe tactics that copyright owners use to establish a test case.

DU students have put forth the argument, that many of the courses just prescribe one or two chapters from the books, so it is not feasible for them, to buy the books, which are most of the times, exorbitantly priced. Most of the students come from economically weaker sections of the society.  
This is not the case, just with DU. Almost all college going students across India, get the books photocopied.  Sec. 52(1)(i) of Copyright Act of 1957,   allows for ‘the reproduction of any work by a teacher or a pupil in the course of instruction’ or as a part of questions or answers to questions. Further a fair dealing with any work  (except computer programs) for the purposes of private or personal use, including research is also excepted from provisions of infringement.  Therefore, reproduction by photocopy for educational purposes is allowed under the Copyright legislation.

In this war between the publishers, and the shop, the ultimate losers are the students, who for no fault of theirs have to suffer.  As a student of DU, rightly puts forth, “You just cannot produce scholars with a ban on photocopying course material.” It would be very much interesting to watch now how courts are going to handle the situation.

Contributed by: Abhishek 

Source

EBC granted injunction against Westlaw for infringing copyright

Thomson Reuters, the multinational information conglomerate based on New York along with its Indian operations- Westlaw India and Indlaw have been restrained by an ad interim injunction from infringing the Copyrights of EBC in their law report "Supreme Court Cases" known as SCC. 

EBC's right over head notes and editorial notes in SCC were earlier upheld by the Supreme Court in Eastern book company v D B Modak

In a lawsuit filed against Thomson Reuters / Westlaw India / Indlaw, the Lucknow District Court Judge, has passed an Interim Injunction on 22/8/2012 restraining the defendants, their assignee's, business franchises, licensees, distributors, agents etc from selling, distributing or otherwise make available to people either as CD- ROM's or through their website or any other means which would infringe the copyright of SCC during the pendency of the suit.

The learned judge after taking into account the affidavit filed by EBC and the contentions raised by them felt that there is a prima facie case as well as balance of convenience  in favour of the plaintiff  due to "exact tallying" of editorial notes by the defendants in their online journals 

14th September has been set out as the date for filing written statements and framing issues.

EBC v Thomson Reuters Order

Source

Copyright drama in Gujarat theatre

The writer-director duo, Vihang Mehta and Suresh Rajda, who rocked Gujarat theatre (with hits starting from 'Chhinna' in 1979 to 'Flat No. 44'), for over two decades scripted a copyright battle in Gujarati rangbhoomi. Mehta has alleged that he wrote the Gujarati play 'Ame Janiye Chiye Tame Kaun Chho', which has been stolen by Rajda, who recently staged the Gujarati play 'Dial Wrong Number', which according to Mehta, is an unauthorized adaptation of his play 'Ame Janiye Chiye Tame Kaun Cho', constituting an infringement of copyright.

The additional district judge (ADJ) of the Vadodara district court M V Zala has granted a stay over adaptation of any of the 18 full-length plays and 10 one-act plays penned by Mehta. The court has also granted an ex-parte interim injunction on performance of 'Dial Wrong Number'.

The IP advocate Avadhoot Sumant of Satya Vidhi & Company represented Mehta.

News Link 

Copyright tussle compels Google to alter search results

It may be a thrash for the torrent hosting websites. But, it was a victory day for the big media companies as they won a battle against online piracy on Friday. The event of their victory emerged when Google agreed to alter its search algorithms to favour web sites that offered legitimate copyrighted movies, music and television.

With the beginning of next week, algorithms of the Google would take into account the number of valid copyright removal notices, that are received by the web sites. As a result, the web sites facing multiple, valid complaints about copyright infringement may appear lower in Google search results.

The move of Google came as victory news for the entertainment industry, as it was, for years pressurising Google and other Internet sites to act against online piracy.

This announcement from Google came after more than six months of a much heated tussle between big media companies and technology companies. The entire tussle involved the proposed legislation intended to crack down on pirated online content, particularly by rogue foreign Web sites.

However, Google has denied removing pages from copyright-infringing web sites from its search engine unless it receives a valid copyright removal notice from the rights’ owner.

According to the statements of Google, it had received copyright removal requests for over 4.3 million web addresses in the last 30 days, according to the company’s transparency report, which was more than what it received 2009.

CC appointed new Regional Project Managers for Africa and the Asia-Pacific

According to the sources, Creative Commons added in its staff crew Tobias Schonwetter and Alex Gakuru (as new Regional Project Managers for Africa) and Jane Hornibrook and SooHyun Pae (as new Regional Project Managers for Asia-Pacific).

The Regional Project Managers at CC support and foster CC’s community in their regions. Creative Commons has volunteer teams operating in over 70 countries, all of whom work to support and promote the adoption of CC in their local jurisdictions, while at the same time providing valuable expertise and input to CC’s work globally.  

About Creative Commons (CC).
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.

It provides free easy-to-use copyright licenses that provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use authors’ creative works, with the conditions of choice of the authors. CC licenses allow changing copyright terms from “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.”  The CC licenses are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable authors to modify their copyright terms to best suit their needs. 

Google should pay $750 per book, says authors in copyright case

Authors suing Google for copyright infringement for  digitization of their works in Google books case have made a filing in a federal court in Southern District of New York to make an order requiring the internet giant to pay $750 per book it copied, distributed or displayed as a part of Google book project.

In its filing  president of Authors Guild, Scot Turow urged the court to rule that Google's unauthorized digitization of works does not amount to fair use. Current motion claims that Google has implemented its library project for commercial reasons to gain competitive advantage over its competitors, Microsoft and Amazon which were also digitizing books but with permission of authors.

On the contrary Google's spokesman took a stand against this view and puts that "Google library project constitutes fair use within copyright law by allowing the users to identify interesting books and find ways to borrow or buys those books and acts much like a card catalog in digital age.

 Google books project began seven years ago, where millions of books where scanned and converted into digital format after entering into agreements with libraries. Further details of project is available here.

Soon after the launch of this project, the authors across world came against it claiming copyright infringement. They claim that scanning in real sense means copying and  thus unauthorized digitization of their works by Google amounts to copyright violations.On the other hand Google always maintained its position that The Books Project amount to fair use within copyright legislation.

It was in mid 2005,  the  Authors Guild and American Association of Publishers filed a suit against Google in a Federal Court of New York to prevent them from digitizing works. The case was sooner declared to be a Class action suit.

In May 2011, a settlement package offered by Google amounting to $127 million USD was rejected by a Federal Judge.

Current motion filed by Authors guild was a  response to Google's motion on 27/7/2012 seeking dismissal of the long running case by claiming that authors have not suffered any economic harm owing to its copying and displaying of digital copies.

Source

EA Files Copyright infringement suit against Zynga

Electronic Arts Inc,an American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games on Friday filed a copyright infringement suit against Zynga, a Social games service provider from San Francisco. EA inc claims that Zynga's  "Ville" game violates their rights over " Sims social", an EA game that runs over Facebook.

EA filed a complaint before a Federal court in San Fracnsico alleging that Zynga's lately released Facebook game "VILLE" contains original elements of their game "Sims social" . EA claims that Zynga has " Willfully and intentionally copied and misappropriated the original distinctive expressive elements of Sims social". 

Launched in August 2011 Sims social is claimed to be viewed and used by several millions of users over Facebook. Lucy Bradshaw in his statement called Zynga's new game as unmistakable infringement of sims social. He claims that " the copying was so comprehensive that the two games are to an uninitiated observer, largely indistinguishable " . He claims the case to be a matter of principle and alleges that Zynga has violated copyrights of other companies in several instances.

EA arts calls its step to be a a stand intended to protect the value of original creative works of the industry as well as of those who work tirelessly to create them.

Zyng's counsel, Reggie Davis,  in his statement denied the claims put forwarded by EA and calls it unfortunate and " lack of understanding of basic copyright principles by them". The Ville according to him is the newest branch of Ville franchise including Cityvill, YoVille and CastleVille and introduces new features which are unknown to the entertainment industry. Further he makes clear their intention to defend the case to the " Fullest extent possible and win with the players".