Law Matters | IN Content Law

As a general rule, the author of a work owns the copyright in it. As such, a student would own the copyright in his or her research papers, thesis, dissertations etc., and any other person including a thesis guide, university, etc. would not be able to publish the works without the authorisation of the student, i.e., without obtaining a licence from the student. Even if such a licence were obtained, the student would have to be credited as the author of the work. However, this legal position is not always honoured to the letter, and there may be grey areas, as this case shows. High Court of Patna; Criminal Miscellaneous No. 31757 of 2000 Sutapa Bhattacharya obtained a PhD (from Bhagalpur University, Bihar) in 1988. Her thesis dealt with political mobilization and caste conflict in Bihar between 1967 and 1980, and her guide was Roma Mitra. After obtaining her degree, Sutapa Bhattacharya permanently settled at Calcutta, West Bengal. Meanwhile, Roma Mitra, her PhD guide publi...

Biographical works can be written without the permission of their subjects. However, the lack of a requirement for consent does not mean that it is prudent to create a work about another person without their consent regardless of the nature of that work. This is because despite the fact that obtaining consent is optional, if consent is not obtained, it is much easier for the dissemination of the work to be restrained on a variety of grounds which could include: (a) A violation of the right to privacy; (b) A violation of the right of publicity; (c) The infringement of copyright; (d) Breach of contract; (e) A violation of laws relating to obscenity; (f) Defamation; (g) Portrayal of the subject in false light; and (h) A violation of other laws such as those relating to sedition, not hurting the religious sentiments of any caste/class and the maintenance of law and order. Pertinently, it is not just the subject of the work who may be able to have its dissemination restrained b...