Copyright Law Comparison in India, China & US

Definition
Intellectual property (IP)[1] is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the
human intellect.[2][3] There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries
recognize more than others.[4][5][6][7][8] The most well-known types
are copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets. Early precursors to some types of
intellectual property existed in societies such as Ancient Rome, but the modern concept of
intellectual property developed in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term
"intellectual property" began to be used in the 19th century, though it was not until the late
20th century that intellectual property became commonplace in the majority of the world's
legal systems.[9]
The main purpose of intellectual property law is to encourage the creation of a wide variety
of intellectual goods.[10] To achieve this, the law gives people and businesses property rights
to the information and intellectual goods they create, usually for a limited period of time. This
gives economic incentive for their creation, because it allows people to profit from the
information and intellectual goods they create.[10] These economic incentives are expected to
stimulate innovation and contribute to the technological progress of countries, which
depends on the extent of protection granted to innovators. [11] The intangible nature of
intellectual property presents difficulties when compared with traditional property like land or
goods. Unlike traditional property, intellectual property is "indivisible", since an unlimited
number of people can "consume" an intellectual good without it being depleted. Additionally,
investments in intellectual goods suffer from problems of appropriation: a landowner can
surround their land with a robust fence and hire armed guards to protect it, but a producer of
information or literature can usually do very little to stop their first buyer from replicating it
and selling it at a lower price. Balancing rights so that they are strong enough to encourage
the creation of intellectual goods but not so strong that they prevent the goods' wide use is
the primary focus of modern intellectual property law.[10]
History
The Statute of Monopolies (1624) and the British Statute of Anne (1710) are seen as the
origins of patent law and copyright respectively,[12] firmly establishing the concept of
intellectual property.
"Literary property" was the term predominantly used in the British legal debates of the 1760s
and 1770s over the extent to which authors and publishers of works also had rights deriving
from the common law of property (Millar v Taylor (1769), Hinton v
Donaldson (1773), Donaldson v Becket (1774)). The first known use of the term intellectual
property dates to this time, when a piece published in the Monthly Review in 1769 used the
phrase.[13] The first clear example of modern usage goes back as early as 1808, when it was
used as a heading title in a collection of essays.[14]
The German equivalent was used with the founding of the North German
Confederation whose constitution granted legislative power over the protection of intellectual
property (Schutz des geistigen Eigentums) to the confederation.[15] When the administrative
secretariats established by the Paris Convention (1883) and the Berne Convention (1886)
merged in 1893, they located in Berne, and also adopted the term intellectual property in
their new combined title, the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual
Property.
The organization subsequently relocated to Geneva in 1960 and was succeeded in 1967
with the establishment of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) by treaty as
an agency of the United Nations. According to legal scholar Mark Lemley, it was only at this
point that the term really began to be used in the United States (which had not been a party
to the Berne Convention),[9] and it did not enter popular usage there until passage of
the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980.[16]
Objectives
The foremost objective of studying copyright laws is to understand the purposes of
protection granted to creators of innovative intellectual creations.
IP law includes ways to protect the creative expressions of the intellect that carry commercial
and moral value. There are several types of intellectual property including Trademarks,
Patents, Industrial designs & Copyright.
The Copyright Act encourages authors, composers, artists, and designers to create original
works by rewarding them with the exclusive right for a limited period (usually for the life of
the originator plus 50 years) to exploit the work for monetary gain. Copyrights serve the
important purpose of ensuring that creators will be recognized for their efforts and protected
from infringement. When they are sure that their works are protected, creators are more
likely to come up with more new creations. As such, it also helps to promote creativity and
innovation.
The other objective of this study is to understand the comparative aspects in copyright laws
of various countries. Here, India, China and US are taken up for the study.

References:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

2.  "Understanding Industrial Property". World Intellectual Property Organization. Retrieved 2018-12-06.

3. "Intellectual, industrial and commercial property | Fact Sheets on the European Union" . European
Parliament. Retrieved 2018-12-06.
4. "What are intellectual property rights?". World Trade Organization. World Trade Organization.
Retrieved 2016-05-23.
5. "Intellectual property", Black's Law Dictionary, 10th ed. (2014).
6. "Understanding Copyright and Related Rights"  (PDF). World Intellectual Property Organization. p.  4.
Retrieved 2018-12-06.
7. "What is Intellectual Property?" (PDF). World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Retrieved 2018-12-07.
8. "Understanding Industrial Property" (PDF). World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Retrieved 2018-12-07.
9. "property as a common descriptor of the field probably traces to the foundation of the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO) by the United Nations." in Mark A. Lemley, Property, Intellectual
Property, and Free Riding Archived2009-02-26 at the Wayback Machine, Texas Law Review, 2005, Vol.
83:1031, page 1033, footnote 4.
10. Goldstein, Paul; Reese, R. Anthony (2008).  Copyright, Patent, Trademark and Related State
Doctrines: Cases and Materials on the Law of Intellectual Property  (6th ed.). New York:
Foundation Press.  ISBN  978-1-59941-139-2.
11. Rod Falvey and Neil Foster (2006): “The Role of Intellectual Property Rights in Technology Transfer and
Economic Growth”: Theory and Evidence, In cooperation with Olga Memedovic UNITED NATIONS
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION (UNIDO),
available: https://www.unido.org/sites/default/files/2009-
04/Role_of_intellectual_property_rights_in_technology_transfer_and_economic_growth_0.pdf
12. Brad, Sherman; Lionel Bently (1999). The making of modern intellectual property law: the British
experience, 1760–1911. Cambridge University Press. p. 207. ISBN  978-0-521-56363-5.
13. "intellectual property".  Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September
2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)(Citing Monthly Review, vol. 41. p.
 290 (1769): "What a niggard this Doctor is of his own, and how profuse he is of other people's
intellectual property.")
14. "intellectual property".  Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September
2005. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)(Citing Medical Repository Of Original
Essays And Intelligence, vol. 11. p. 303(1808): "New-England Association in favour of Inventors and
Discoverers, and particularly for the Protection of intellectual Property.")
15. 'Article 4 No. 6 of the Constitution of 1867 (German)' Hastings Law Journal, Vol. 52, p. 1255, 2001
16. Mark A. Lemley, "Property, Intellectual Property, and Free Riding" (Abstract); see Table 1: 4–5.
17.
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