Document Fragment View

Matching Fragments

8. We are, however, concerned with the state of things prevalent prior to 21st January, 1958, when the Copyright Act, 1957 (Act No. 14 of 1957), was brought into force. The law then in force was the Imperial Copyright Act, 1911 (1 and 2 Geo. V, Ch. 46) which, with slight modification, was made applicable to this Country by the Indian Copyright Act (Act No. 3 of 1914). The Imperial Copyright Act, 1911, either as operating proprio vigore or as applied bv the Indian Copyright Act, 1914, was "a law in force in the territory of India immediately before the commencement of the Constitution", and it, therefore, continued to be in force as the law of the land by virtue of Article 372(1) of the Constitution. We consider the following passage in Copinger and Skone James on Copyright, 9th Edn., pp. 428-9, as describing the position correctly:

9. Under the law then prevalent i.e., according to the provisions of the earlier enactments, the first owner of the copyright is the author and his right of assignment is dealt with in Section 5 (2) and (3) of the Indian Copyright Act. 1914, We believe the law on that aspect still remains the same with some modifications, even under the new Copyright Act, 1957. The only change that is relevant for our purposes is, that under the old law, the non-registration of the copyright had not the effect of entailing the dismissal of an action in respect of infringement of copyright commenced when the Act of 1914 was in force see, Balantrapu Venkata Rao v. Valluri Padmanabha Raju. ILR 51 Mad 180 = (AIR 1927 Mad 981). Wallace, J., in that case, followed the view expressed in N. V. Savory Ltd. v. World of Golf Ltd., 1914-2 Ch 566, under the allied Fine Arts Copyright Act, that mere failure to register does not deprive an artist of his copyright. That appears to us to be a correct and reasonable view. The Indian Copyright Act, 1914, had nowhere made any provision for the registration of copyrights. Under the Copyright Act, 1957. it appears that under Sections 13 and 45, the registration of book with the Registrar of Copyrights, is a condition for acquiring copyright with respect to it. A plain reading of the several provisions of the Act, leaves no doubt in our minds that a copyright in a book now is only secured if it is an original compilation and has been duly registered according to the provisions of the 1957 Act. Once it is so registered, the author is deemed to acquire property rights in the book. The right arising from the registration of the book can be the subject-matter of civil or criminal remedy, so that, without it the author can have no rights, nor remedies in spite of the fact that his work is an original one. We are, however, concerned with the state of law prevalent under the Imperial Copyright Act, 1911, enacted by the British Parliament, subject to such modifications as stated in the Indian Copyright Act, 1914. It is necessary for us to deal with this aspect because the learned counsel for the appellants, during the course of his arguments, obliquely suggested that the copyright of the book in question "Saral Middle School Ank Ganeet' not being registered, neither the author nor his assignee had any kind of right or remedy. The whole object of this discussion is to remove that misconception.

10. Under the law relating to copyright then prevalent, to which we have already referred, viz., the Imperial Copyright Act, 1911, as adopted or modified to suit Indian conditions by the Indian Copyright Act, 1914, a person had an inherent copyright in an original composition or compilation without the necessity of its registration. Under the English enactment (Sections 1 and 2) copyright may subsist subject to the provisions of the Act "in every original literary, dramatic, musical artistic work."

11. While we are dealing with this aspect, it is also necessary for us to dispel the doubt expressed by the learned counsel for the appellants that no copyright can be had in respect of a textbook on arithmetic like 'Saral Middle School Ank Ganeet', because it would necessarily be, in a different, form, compilation of certain arithmetical problems originated by others. We are clearly of the view that the assumption of the learned counsel is wholly unfounded. Neither original thought nor original research is essential for a literary work to be original under Section 1, Schedule I, of the Indian Copyright Act, 1914. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Macmillan and Co. v. K. and J. Cooper, AIR 1924 PC 75, while interpreting Section 2 of the Imperial Copyright Act, 1911, had stated: