A Brief Note On Voluntary Licenses Under Copyright Law

COMPULSORY LICENSES UNDER COPYRIGHT LAW

A license is a temporary transfer of interest in a copyright from the owner of the copyright to the licensee. In a license, the rights granted are scarce. It allows the licensee to use the copyrighted work without fearing any claim of copyright infringement brought before by the owner of the copyright. It varies from a copyright assignment as this is subject to a license agreement and also the sole ownership rests with the original owner of the copyright. An assignment entails the rights to the assignee who then becomes the owner of the interest.

As per Copyright law, it can either be voluntary or compulsory. Compulsory Licensing stems from various international conventions such as Article 9(2) and Article 11bis (2) of the Berne Convention. Article 13 of the TRIPS Agreement also deals with

It was held that that the Copyright Board doesn’t have the right to grant interim compulsory licenses. It was also held that the Copyright Board does not have jurisdiction to grant interim orders in the matter of compulsory licensing under S.31(1)(b) of the Indian Copyright Act.

Compulsory licenses are not the norm. Voluntary licenses are the norm while the former are just a mere exception. Even though, the Act provides for their grant to any applicant fulfilling the pre-conditions.

CONCLUSION

There is much to be discussed by Courts in determining various aspects of granting compulsory licenses since there is a dearth of solid precedent on the same. Even though the compliance with international conventions have enabled Copyright Act to deal with it, there are a lot of procedural loopholes because of which the industry faces an infraction of their rights to use copyrighted material. After the merging of the Copyright Board with the IPAB, it is only expected such inadequacies would be dealt