Restricting the Rights of Foreign Authors

In one line

If another country will not protect Indian works, the Government can take away the protection its authors get here.

In the wording a student can write in an exam: section 42 of the Copyright Act, 1957 provides that if it appears to the Central Government that a foreign country does not give or has not undertaken to give adequate protection to the works of Indian authors, it may by order published in the Official Gazette direct that such of the provisions of the Act as confer copyright on works first published in India shall not apply to works published after a date specified in the order whose authors are subjects or citizens of that country and are not domiciled in India.

Why the law has this at all

Because national treatment is a bargain. A country protects another's works because that other protects its own.

Because a country outside the conventions owes nothing. Berne and TRIPS bind their members. A country in neither can copy Indian works freely.

And because the threat is the point. A reciprocity provision works by existing. It is a lever in negotiation, and a country that knows the power exists is likelier to offer protection.

The provision

Section 42, the condition. "If it appears to the Central Government that a foreign country does not give or has not undertaken to give adequate protection to the works of Indian authors".

The power. The Central Government may, by order published in the Official Gazette, direct that "such of the provisions of this Act as confer copyright on works first published in India shall not apply to works, published after the date specified in the order, the authors whereof are subjects or citizens of such foreign country and are not domiciled in India, and thereupon those provisions shall not apply to such works".

Broken down

"Adequate protection to the works of Indian authors". The test is what the foreign country does for Indian works, not what it does generally.

"Does not give or has not undertaken to give". An undertaking is enough, which is what makes the section a negotiating tool.

What is withdrawn. The provisions conferring copyright on works first published in India. So the target is a foreign author who publishes first in India and relies on section 13(2)(i).

Two cumulative conditions on the author. He must be a subject or citizen of that foreign country, and he must not be domiciled in India.

And it is prospective. Works published after the date specified in the order.

Section 8 supplies a rule for companies. A body corporate is deemed domiciled in India if it is incorporated under an Indian law, so a foreign author's Indian company is outside the section.