Boon or a bane

Intellectual property has long been an enigma. Time and again it has been cause for controversy, as several nuances of it remain largely unexplained. While piracy and counterfeiting continue to take a toll on the entertainment and media industries, most of the problems remain woolly. Earlier this month, the Government of India introduced the revived Intellectual Property Rights policy, which, among many other things, has pledged to raise awareness on IPR and has criminalised any act of violation of the policy. However, while the media and communication industry insiders seemed to have warmed up to the proposed changes, according to patent experts, the common folk should be worried.

The Indian music industry and the government have had a long history of public-private partnership. The Indian Music Industry (IMI) and the Indian police have registered more than forty thousand cases of piracy. “Music is one of the industries that bear the maximum brunt of piracy,” points out Savio D’Souza, secretary general of IMI. “We’ve shut down the largest number of websites in the world (about 300) out of 600 such sites,” Savio points out, adding, “Intellectual property is solely owned by the creators; it plays a certain role in society. This new IPR policy, at least on paper, says that the government of the country is very committed to do something about it. And we are looking forward to the positive changes,” he says.

Comedian and writer Sohrab Pant confesses to having limited knowledge on the matter. However, speaking of his own experience, he says, “There are lot of random Twitter and Instagram profiles that are stealing jokes from comedians and putting them up as their own, and earning money out of it. But the problem is far deeper. When you question them, they argue saying that we put it on the Internet, and therefore it belongs to everyone. So if the new policy is educating people with regards to IPR and what it’s all about, I think that makes sense,” he says.

The world of publishing has also been on the receiving end of the perils of piracy for long and Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO of HarperCollins, India, feels that India needs a “watertight IPR policy”. He says, “This is not a country that recognises even street-level piracy as a problem.” Pointing at the general lack of awareness, he says, “Publishers spend a lot of effort, time and money to use legal services to ensure we keep pirated editions off the ground. Broadly, the rules are applied but no one thinks of it as a real problem that requires serious rectifying.” With the new policy, Ananth feels that things will change. Watertight IPR policy takes into consideration all the work of the creative artists, their remuneration, piracy, subscription and digital exploitation especially in the era of smart phones. The need of the hour is a non-political, generous, objective view on how to best manage the IPR. And we hope the policy will do that,” adds Ananth.

However, some experts are not as optimistic. Shamnad Basheer, an Indian legal scholar, points out the other end of the spectrum. According to Basheer, if the policy is implemented, it’s the common man and especially students who will be the most affected by it. “For the common man, access will be constrained. The moment you tilt in favour of an unduly one-dimensional way of IP and you say everything will be patented, every part of our knowledge economy will be converted into an IP asset. As a result, the common man is going to have a problem because everything has to be paid for.”

He refers to an incident in Delhi University when publishers objected to students photocopying extracts from academic books. “That’s what will happen to the common man — price for every piece of knowledge goods in the country will go up,” Basheer adds.

He also questions the degree of offence. “In terms of copyright, the only thing in the policy that is of any worth is the criminalising of movie piracy. Then the question arises as to why should the violation of intellectual property right be a criminal offence as opposed to a civil offence Is it that much of a threat to our security that we need to criminalise it Intellectual property wrongs, are essentially civil wrongs. So to criminalise it is killing an ant with an elephant gun,” he says.

According to Savio, “It’s like you are used to staying in a slum and all of a sudden you are moved to a 50th floor apartment. Now are there flaws in that building Maybe. But it is much better to have clean air and sunlight and healthier environment. So, I see this as a great and positive effort.” He thinks that that Indians hardly have any room to complain.

Shamnad, however, asks us to bear in mind that the policy does not have the legal backing yet. “It is only a vision statement with an objective. Unless it is translated into law, none of this is enforceable. It’s just something on paper and at the moment is as powerful as a toothless tiger,” he says.