Laws Relating to Copyright and the Entertainment Industry

Author(s) - Nilay Joshi1, Pranjal Apurva2

Since the decade of independence has passed, entertainment industry has had a significant
influence in the lives of general public. Be it the ascendancy of an actor's style in a movie or the
impact of some book or play.
Though there are strict laws that are formulated to protect the original works of an author in
entertainment industry, people of the same industry has served as a culprit to their fellow mates
by infringing the works of other in different forms such as plagiarism or making an exact copy of
a video film.
The advent of internet has also served as a main reason for killing the copyright laws as no one
now pays for purchasing content, they only pay for its licensing.
Also, plagiarized content is rapidly been sold over the internet and issues like piracy and hacking
etc. are unaddressed as of yet.
In this paper we discuss the scenario in a country like India, where most of the Intellectual
Property cases are related to copyright Because of the ever growing and emerging entertainment
and media industry, one of the most appropriate source to protect an artist’s work is a strong
copyright law which should be framed in such a way that it is capable to combat the problems
that are arising out of the technological development and advancement. The copyright laws can
be combined with other laws such as the Information Technology Act, for instance, to form a
dynamic and wide-scope law.
Recently, Ministry of Information and Broadcast is proposing to set up a copyright board which
will ensure proper enforcement and implementation of copyright law in the entertainment and
media industry.
The paper also discusses the role and scope of Arbitration in copyright cases instead of the
involvement of judiciary for resolving the disputes at the earliest.

1 th
4 year student, BBA-LLB (Hons.), ICFAI Law School, The ICFAI University, Dehradun (248001); E-mail ID-
nil.joshi48@gmail.com, Contact No.- 07891318071
2
4th year student, BBA-LLB (Hons.), ICFAI Law School, The ICFAI University, Dehradun (248001); E-mail ID-
pranjal.apurva9@gmail.com, Contact No.- 08400622235
This paper is aimed at discussing various loopholes present in the Indian Copyright law along
with the dispute resolving mechanism and grey areas in entertainment and media industry
regarding the copyright law.