Indian Copyright Act and new communication technologies: A special focus on webcasting

The main aim of this paper is to consider whether the Indian Copyright Act 1957 (ICA) gives protection to future technologies. It follows an earlier paper on Webcaster's protection under copyright published in [2011] 27 CLSR 479–496. By way of asking that question it is sensible to examine whether webcasting/streaming is protected by ICA or not. In order to enquire the same, we need to study the penetration of streaming/webcasting technology into the Indian market and its application. Since the technology is linked with the Internet, it is also essential to examine its penetration and the availability of bandwidth and the potential market for such communications. All these aspects are studied in the first part of this paper. In the second part a brief outline is offered of the relevant provisions of the Act. At issue is whether they give protection to the future technologies or not. This will be considered in part three. The same will be examined with the proposed amendment to the Act too. The paper concludes that the Act fails to give protection to future technologies and therefore that streaming/webcasting is not protected in India under the copyright regime.