Open Access Research Article
BROADCAST REPRODUCTION RIGHTS VERSUS OTT PLATFORMS: A DOCTRINAL STUDY OF STATUTORY INTERPRETATION GAPS UNDER SECTION 31D AND CHAPTER VIII OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT, 1957
Abstract
Copyright's neighbouring rights regime has long rested on a distinction
between the creator of a work and the intermediary who transmits it to the
public — a distinction codified in India through the broadcast reproduction
right under Section 37 of the Copyright Act, 1957. This right, alongside the
statutory licensing mechanism under Section 31D, was drafted for an era of
linear, one-to-many transmission and has strained visibly under the growth of
Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms, which deliver content on a non-linear,
user-directed basis that the statutory text does not squarely address.
The Bombay High Court's decision in Tips Industries Ltd v
Wynk Music Ltd, and its affirmance on appeal, settled the immediate legal
question by holding that Section 31D's compulsory licensing scheme is confined
to conventional radio and television broadcasting and does not extend to
on-demand internet streaming. What the litigation leaves unexamined is the
trajectory that preceded it: the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion
had, in 2016, taken the opposite interpretive position, reading
"broadcasting organisation" to include internet broadcasters, a view
the Rajya Sabha's 161st Standing Committee Report endorsed in 2021 as necessary
to maintain parity between digital and legacy platforms. Both positions were
subsequently abandoned — the proposed 2019 amendment to the Copyright Rules was
dropped in 2021, and the 2016 Memorandum was formally withdrawn in 2024 —
leaving the exclusionary judicial reading as the operative law by default
rather than by legislative design.
This paper argues that the resulting position cannot be
understood in isolation. It is mirrored internationally by the WIPO
Broadcasting Treaty negotiations, which have excluded webcasting and
simulcasting from binding protection since 2006, suggesting the problem is one
of unresolved doctrinal architecture rather than a peculiarly Indian oversight.
It is also contradicted domestically: the draft Broadcasting Services
(Regulation) Bill defines "Broadcaster" to expressly include OTT
platforms, producing a situation in which the same
entity is a broadcaster for regulatory purposes and not a broadcaster for
copyright-licensing purposes. Beyond mapping this inconsistency, the paper
interrogates a
more fundamental question the existing literature
has largely bypassed: whether the broadcast reproduction right — a doctrine
built to protect the transmission of a signal rather than the content it
carries — is
conceptually capable of accommodating OTT platforms, which
function principally as licensees of content rather than originators of a
broadcast signal, regardless of how expansively "broadcasting" is
defined.
Published Paper
Author Details
Authors: PUVIYA KEERTHIRegistration ID: 1013544 | Published Paper ID: IJLRA13544Approved ISSN: 2582-6433 | Country: Delhi, India
Article Information
BROADCAST REPRODUCTION RIGHTS VERSUS OTT PLATFORMS: A DOCTRINAL STUDY OF STATUTORY INTERPRETATION GAPS UNDER SECTION 31D AND CHAPTER VIII OF THE COPYRIGHT ACT, 1957
Authors: PUVIYA KEERTHI
- Journal IJLRA
- ISSN 2582-6433
- Volume 3
- Issue 8
About Journal
International Journal for Legal Research and Analysis
- AbbreviationIJLRA
- ISSN2582-6433
- AccessOpen Access
- LicenseCC 4.0
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