This post was first published on 28th June, 2014.
The 2012 Copyright Amendment codified Statutory Licenses for radio broadcasting and has added television broadcasting to be within the scope of the license. Section 31D deals with statutory licenses for broadcasting. It reads as follows:
"31D. Statutory licence for broadcasting of literary and musical works and sound recording.
(1) Any broadcasting organisation desirous of communicating to the public by way of a broadcast or by way of performance of a literary or musical…
In our post last week, we looked at statutory licensing for broadcast organizations specified under Section 31D of the Indian Copyright Act. As mentioned earlier, the objective of non-voluntary licensing is to overcome the difficulty of locating the original owner of the copyrighted work in order to obtain a license and to avoid the creation of monopoly of copyright owners.
The Copyright Act similarly contains provisions for statutory licensing for cover versions under Section 31C. While Section 31D which talks…