Student, National University of Study and Research in Law, Ranchi
Online published on 30 June, 2017.
Broadcasting opened great opportunity of relying performances to truly mass audience and thus emerged a set or rights which were exclusive to these broadcasters. Initially, the copyright issues were resolved by adopting a twofold method, (a) holding broadcasting as an act of infringement and thus requiring broadcasters to seek copyright licenses, and (b) by making the act of broadcasting as an activity which itself attracted copyright and thus requiring licenses for re-transmission purposes. But with the inducement of the broadcaster's rights under the copyright law, a significant change resulted in the cable television industry. Rights of broadcasting organizations envisaged by the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 as amended in 1994 are a set of exclusive rights given to broadcasters. These rights are essentially neighboring rights, which do not protect the copyright in the work but the broadcast itself. The present study tries to examine the exclusivity of copyright protection and broadcasting rights in the cable television industry. The study also highlights the protection afforded to broadcasters under different jurisdictions including US, UK and India as well as to analyze the effect of copyright protection on the broadcasting rights. The study will also cover the on-going attempts, under the aegis of the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization (WIPO) to consolidate and harmonize the available rights and protection.
