Copyright in Webinars and Workshops
Contributor: Naman Priyadarshi
Copyright is a kind of intellectual property since it safeguards the creator’s original concept. Software, artwork, a design, an image, or a journal paper including research might all be examples of the notion. In contrast to a patent, copyright requires no expenditure to acquire and preserve it. Its validity is interestingly 60 years after the author’s passing. Academicians are very creative and have novel ideas, but sadly, they place less value on copyrights. On the other hand, businessmen understand how crucial copyrights are. If the author has expressed the same concept differently than other individuals, such other presentations may also be protected by copyright. In contrast to ideas, copyright is an expression.
Most physical activities have switched to digital form as a result of Covid-19, including webinars, workshops. Due to the pandemic, online learning has entered a new phase. Since the lockdown, the phase which started, and there were numerous webinars happening online. From Raising awareness about Covid-19 to online courses, so that the people and country is not left behind, lot of webinars were being conducted online. The key issue of worry is whether any copyright violations have been brought on by currently running online webinars.
Online Education During Covid-19
The Pandemic caused a tremendous revolution in education, and the delivery systems’ operation are the core of the change. As more and more classes are held online, the burdens of legal research have increased. They now focus on the issues of copyright laws’ applicability and their practicality in relation to the education that is delivered to students worldwide via the internet, whether through recorded lectures, study materials, or any other form of education being imparted or the medium in which it is shared. There is undoubtedly the potential for dialogue and diffusion since this topic is being discussed and evaluated more and more.
The Center believes that the webinar serves as a comprehensive and discursive academic venue for the involvement of interest parties like law students, practitioners since it features prominent copyright law academics.
Copyright Applied in Facets of Webinars and Workshop
- Legally using webinar recordings
In various circumstances, the use of the lectures or recordings that are a part of a webinar may not constitute copyright infringement under section 52 even if the user does not have permission from the copyright owners of the lectures or the recording. Section 52(1)(i) and Section 52(1) are two significant fair use exceptions that apply to the use of webinar lectures or recordings for educational purposes. The replication of a work “in the course of education” by a teacher is addressed in section 52(1)(i). The phase “in the course of teaching” has been broadly interpretated by the Delhi High Court to embrace all of the actions that a teacher engages in while imparting education in the well-known Rameshwari Photocopy case. However, it is important to note that in this case, the use of the webinar lectures or recordings would only be subject to the fair use restrictions applying if the recordings were created with a permission (explicit or implicit) from the webinar presenters in the first place.
- Rights of Participants in webinar recordings
According to Section 2(n), a lecture is defined as include an address, a speech, and sermon. This means that in order for an oration to be considered a “lecture” for the purposes of the act, it must be extensive and extended and should not be brief, fleeting, or of a transitory nature. As a result, it is doubtful that the participants’ contribution, which typically takes the form of questions or brief comments, will be protected by copyright as a lecture. Additionally, copyright law opposes the preservation of a concise statements. According to the Delhi High Court’s opinion in the case of Pepsi Co. v. Hindustan Coca Cola, which was based on a number of authorities, there is no copyright for banal lines and insignificant works since they lack literary quality.
- Distributing the webinar recordings
The assertion that the person or group that organizes the webinar has ownership of the audio-video (AV) recording, which is a cinematograph film for purposes of the Act, is another crucial one that deserves further examination. A cinematograph film, or any other work of visual or auditory recording, or a sound recording, are exempt from the requirement of originality per se under section 13(1) of the Act. However, section 13(3) stipulates that copyright shall not exist in a cinematographic film if a significant portion of it constitutes a violation of the copyright in “any other work” and in a sound recording if the underlying work was violated in the process of creating it.
Conclusion
Fortunately, it appears that there haven’t been any copyright conflicts with webinars up to this point. Given their potential lack of familiarity with the many copyright issues involved in webinars, many webinar organisers and presenters may still prefer an oral agreement based on mutual understanding. However, a review of pertinent legal laws reveals that figuring out who owns what in a webinar may entail difficult copyright discussions that aren’t necessarily oral. Thus, in order to avoid any legal issues in the future, it is crucial for organisers and speakers who are specific about these claims to enter into thorough written agreements that explicitly state the limits of their involvement in accordance with copyright law.
