Q Why is it in News ?
Recently, Google has signed a deal with a group of French publishers to make digital copyright payments for online news content.
Q What is this Google-French Deal?
France became the first country to enshrine the European Union copyright rules into national law. This brought into effect 'neighbouring rights' law. The newly adopted EU directive ensures that media are paid for original content, typically news, offered online by tech giants such as Google and Facebook.
Under the new law, Google was forced to negotiate to pay the publishers and news agencies for reusing their material online.
Q What is Neighbouring Rights?
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), neighbouring rights protect the legal interests of certain persons and legal entities that contribute to making works available to the public or that produce subject matter which, while not qualifying as works under the copyright systems of all countries, contains sufficient creativity or technical and organizational skill to justify recognition of a copyright-like property right.
Q What are European Union Copyright Rules ?
It wants to create a comprehensive framework where copyrighted material, copyright holders, publishers, providers and users can all benefit from clearer rules, adapted to the digital era. The focus is on three main objectives:
Q What can be Significance for India?
Digital technologies have transformed the way creative content is produced, distributed and accessed.
The new EU Directive and ongoing Copyright royalty tussle in Australia brings to light the need for updating the copyright rules across the world including India to sync policies and laws to enable Digital copyright payments for its content creators too.
According to a FICCI-EY report, in India’s media and entertainment sector for 2020, there are 300 million users of online news sites, portals and aggregators in the country.
With 282 million unique visitors, India is the world’s second largest online news consuming nation after China.
Q Are there any provisions in Draft Copyright (Amendment Rules) 2019?
Draft Copyright (Amendment Rules), 2019 is a positive step in securing interests of Indian content creators and users.
Existing Copyright Laws in India:
Draft Copyright (Amendment Rules), 2019: It was released by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). The amendments are being brought in to bring the Copyright Act on par with other relevant legislations and to ensure it is in sync with the technological advancements in the current digital era. It also proposes to amend the manner in which copyright societies fix their tariff schemes.
Q What is a Copyright Society ?
A It is a legal body which protects or safeguards the interest of owners of the work by giving assurance to the creative authors of the commercial management of their works.
These societies issue licences and collect royalties in accordance with a tariff scheme.
DPIIT has proposed in the amendments that when fixing its tariff the copyright society may consider, “cross-sectional tariff comparisons, economic research, the nature and scope of the use of the work, the commercial value of the rights in use and the benefits to licensees”.
The amendments propose to make it mandatory for copyright societies to publish “the annual transparency” report for each financial year on its Website.
Q What can be way forward?