HOW COPIED IS ORIGINAL? COPYRIGHT: THEN AND NOW
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Abstract
This article is divided into two parts.
In the first part which I call ‘Copyright Then’, I will discuss some landmark cases of Copyright Infringement decided in the United Kingdom on the basis of the Doctrine of Sweat of the Brow. I will draw a trail from the non-application of this doctrine in the University of London Press Case to the literal application in Walter v. Lane and the eventual selective application in Ladbroke v. William Hill case.
In the second part which I call ‘Copyright Now’, I will show that in spite of the monumental metamorphoses in the method of disseminating information, not much has changed in the way we choose to give credit to the producers of such content. I will do this by discussing the recent turn down of the European Union Copyright Directives that aimed to update laws against infringement for this digitizing age by connecting it with case law from the jurisdictions of New Delhi to United States to show an emerging recurrent approach of turndown of the directives between ‘Copyright then and Copyright Now.’
“People do it at work, in community groups, and at home. Whether it is a Sunday school presentation or higher-ed curriculum, a slide show for your uncle’s birthday or for the board meeting, an adorable exchange between two cousins at the reunion, documentation of a rough moment in the town council meeting, a fashion assembly on the DIY designer site Polyvore, a blog post, or a teaser for an important report on YouTube”- people are constantly copy pasting without giving the author of the original content any credit. This is where each one of us interacts with the law on Copyright- sometimes as the thief and at others, as the owner. This makes it significant for us to study the crusade we find ourselves struggling against every now and then.
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