Economic and Moral Rights under Copyright Law in India: A Balanced Analysis of Author’s Interests

The Copyright law of India is “set to strike a fine balance between the proprietary and the right of the authors and greater good of the population to know and culture. This equilibrium is reflected in the bi-polar system of economic and moral rights of the Copyright Act, 1957. Even though economic right allows the authors to have exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, communication to the people and adaptation of their work, the moral rights safeguard the personality and reputation of the author by observing the right of paternity and integrity. The paper under discussion has conducted a reasonable assessment of the two dimensions within the Indian legal system. It examines the lawmaking move, judicial precedent, such as the Amarnath Sehgal v. v. Union of India, Indian Performing Right Society v. Eastern Indian Motion Pictures Association, criticizes the attitude of Indian courts in interpretation of authors rights as regards to technological progress and commercial exploitation. It also studies the relationship between the copyright protection and the constitutional values, and the freedom of speech in particular and the right to livelihood. In so doing, it purports that economic rights promote creativity, but moral rights humanize copyright by enrooting decency within the intellectual property law. The study concludes that the most important thing is to have the capacity to remain in a fragile, context-dependent balance to ensure authorial safety and social changes in the so-called shifting” digital era.