In this blog post, Tejaswinee Roychowdhury, pursuing M.A. in business law from NUJS, Kolkata, talks about the remedies a producer have if his movie is dubbed in a regional language without his consent.

Introduction

The first question that arises is – What is Copyright? If the word ‘copyright’ is to be explained in layman’ terms, it is the right a person has over the work he creates. A man’s creative work can be one of literature or art or music or movies and many more. Such a work is the man’s intellectual property and the principle behind copyright law is very simple – one must have complete rights over one’s property and may use it any way he pleases.

Other’s cannot claim that property to be their own and use them commercially as if it is their own. Copyright law while protecting the rights of the author, prevents others from misusing the intellectual property of another. In essence, it is more of a negative right than a positive one. This is because it protects the right of one man while preventing the rest of the world from abusing the right. It is a preventive right in nature. In India, copyright law is governed by the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.

According to the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization (WIPO) website:

“Copyright (or author’s right) is a legal term used to describe the rights that creators have over their literary and artistic works. Works covered by copyright range from books, music, paintings, sculpture, and films, to computer programs, databases, advertisements, maps, and technical drawings.” [1]

There are numerous and varied reasons why copyright is essential. There are multiple rights an author has surrounding his creation. These are mostly socio-economic rights. We will discuss more of that later.