Protection of Multimedia Work in Cyberspace

The protection of copyright is provided to the owner or can say the creator of the original work of authorship which includes many categories of work like literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, cinematograph and sound recording. When the reproduction of the book is started after discovery of printing press then the importance of copyright is increased. In 1914 the first Indian legislation was passed which is mainly based on U.K...

Copyright Act of 1911. The improvement of the technologies is increased then due to this many other things are also developing like broadcasting, recording etc then the updating of copyright law is became essential. As a result, in Parliament the Copyright Act is introduced in 1957. This law presently governs the copyright system in India. The Indian copyright Act is amended many times in 1983, 1984, 1992, 1994, and 1999. The office of Copyright in India is falls under Ministry of HRD (Human Resource Development).

Main function of copyright is to protect the skill of the person by protecting his work from being copied by other. Some people take unfair advantage of other persons work. Copyright mainly protect the written word then it covers visual and artistic works then cinematograph film and recording of sound were brought in regime. Now there are many new things which come under the protection of copyright like cable transmission, television broadcast and radio along with computer program.

In 1956 when Copyright Act is introduced in that Act it did not talks about protection of computer program and computers then in 1980s when computer is widely used among the people then many software developing companies faces the problem of software piracy then in 1988 the Copyright Act is amended and includes computer program under the category of literary work.

Multimedia Work:

Multimedia work is the combination of data, image, sound animation and etc. the material of multimedia work may be found on tapes like audio, video and digitized multimedia material may be found on removal disk, magnetic disk, digital tapes, floppy disk and hard disk of the computer. These days the work which is found in website is also consider as a multimedia work.


Obtain and Protect Copyright of Multimedia Work:

While creating the multimedia work the author of the work have to take permission from the owner of a previously copyrighted work to use any element of his work and for video clip, photo or sound the author has to locate who to give credit for each element and he also have to send request to use the element from the copyright holder then the owner who holds the copyright will reply with the permission to use the element of his work. There is a fact that every element is in different media and also contributes to the problem of obtaining the permission because each media may have its own set of guidelines to get permission to use their work.

If the copyright holder sold his business, moved, gone out of business and transfer his copyright to someone else then the process to obtain permission from owner to use the element become more complicated so in that case the author have to take many steps for locating the copyright holder as possible and if author did not get the permission from the owner then he can take permission from the copyright board to use the work.

Permission to use the sound work in the multimedia is much overwhelming. For the use of a single song, multimedia developer has to obtain permission from the publisher of music and also from the company who record that sound. If author use that sound with video then the he also need synchronization license. This license is required if video and movie is combined and the same procedure is followed to obtain the permission to use video clip.


Protection of Multimedia Work:

Protection of multimedia work is not defined exactly in Copyright Act. It is not clearly defined that how to protect the multimedia work in cyberspace but there are some categories under which multimedia work may be protected. These categories are – 

Computer Program: 
Computer program comes under the category of literary work and multimedia work or product contains computer program like with the help of software it allows non linear viewing of multimedia product and by software we can also use the material which is contained in multimedia product so multimedia work may come under the category of computer program and we can protect it under literary work.

Compilation:
Compilation comes under the category of literary work. Any multimedia work which is combination of symbols, text and figures may come under compilation. If work is made up of artistic image then it is protected under artistic work not under compilation and if the multimedia work is made by using images and text both then it may protect under both category artistic work and literary work. 

Film:
If multimedia work contains the moving picture like video then it comes under category of film and this type of multimedia work may be protected under film category.


Fair Dealing of Multimedia Work:

It is free to copy the multimedia work and product for the purpose of fair dealing and it is not necessary to take the permission from the owner of the copyright to use his work for fair dealing. The exceptions for fair dealing are – 
Any student can make copy of the work without taking the permission of copyright owner for study and research work.
School and institution can use the multimedia work of other to their students for non-commercial purpose.
Teacher can use content from a film to make a satirical point during class.


Conclusion:

The protection of multimedia work is not defined under the Copyright Act but as we know that the multimedia work is made up of computer program, compilation and film all these were come under the works like literary work and artistic work which is protected under the copyright law. So we can protect the multimedia work by relating it from the protection of defined works under the Copyright Act.

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