The Standing Committee looking into India's Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2010, submitted its recommendations to the Parliament yesterday, after a closed room consultation process with multiple stakeholders invited, particularly from the music, films and broadcasting business. (Hat Tip: Spicy IP) The report submitted by this committee is particularly important, given the context that there have been, of late, instances of laws being passed by India's legislature; In case of India's Information Technology Act, in 2008, the standing committe's recommendations were accepted without debate. Download the report here. The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2010 has significant implications for digital businesses (including ours), because it covers ownership of content, licensing of rights, what constitutes copyright violation, whether DRM is illegal, what constitutes piracy, what constitutes 'communication to the public', tariff's for copyright content among others. Importantly, it also covers Intermediary Liability of ISPs and websites, including content sharing sites. First up, we'll look at the recommendations related to an issue which should concern all websites, ISPs and content owners: Intermediary Liability, Safe Harbor Given the context of the infamous case against Baazee.com (now eBay India), in relation to pornographic content being sold via their website, the inclusion of a safe harbor provision was particularly important for Internet businesses in India. This would also cover comments on sites like ours, as well as content uploaded to YouTube. The Internet Technology Act provided for safe harbor for ISPs, but for copyright content, said that it should be government by the Copyright Act. In the initial version…
