Raman Mittal

With the aid of P2P technology, the vast and ever growing cyber populace has the competence of unauthorized sharing of digitized copyrighted works such as music, films and computer software without bothering to pay for them. This unauthorized sharing of copyrighted works, which is termed as online piracy, has led to massive distribution and exchange of valuable stuff, which was hitherto unknown on such a scale and magnitude. When such piracy takes place at the instance of ordinary people, copyright law is once again challenged by the latest in the series of technological innovations, i.e., digital and communications technology. In an environment where the producer-middleman-consumer chain has reached a fragile point, it becomes imperative to find a legal solution to promote creative activity in an organized manner, which secures the interests of both producers and consumers. Towards this end, this paper focuses on the sharing of works through various P2P networks such as Napster, Gn...

In order to compensate the copyright owners for use of their works by end-users, a levy system has been implemented in various countries which seeks to tax certain copying equipment and operators. The same system has been proposed for cloud storage and Internet services. The levy system tries to balance the social norms of file sharing with the legal norm of copyright enforcement. The licensing mechanisms that could be used to give effect to the levy systems are built on the model whereby the owner forsakes some of his rights in order to gain fair remuneration. For the levy system to play a more meaningful role in the future, it has to be made more uniform and widespread in its application. Together with the levy system, various managerial goals and tools also aim at ensuring payment to rights owners by regaining and retaining control over copyrighted works in the digital environment. For the convenience of end-users, a single window service and a single fee license could be experim...

The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 (MRTP Act) which for the first time incorporated detailed provisions as to unfair trade practices (UTPs) in India has now been repealed and succeeded by the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 which has included the same substantive definition of UTPs. This article analyses the law as to UTPs under the repealed MRTP Act including the cases decided thereunder and compares it with the structure of the Consumer Protection Act with the objective of evaluating whether the present Consumer Dispute Redressal Agencies under the Consumer Protection Act have adequate substantive provisions and effective procedural competence to ward off UTPs. Our analysis of legislative provisions and decided cases shows that the present system of protection against UTPs under the Consumer Protection Act is blighted by a strict and restrictive definition of consumer; lack of in-house enquiry and investigation system, incompetency of traders and trade associations to pursue cases, and lack of inherent power of the Consumer Dispute Redressal Agencies to suo motu take up matters. The article uses analytical and statistical methods to quantify, in terms of actual effect, these drawbacks which significantly hamper the present system and suggests various means to improve the functioning of the system so as to effectively deal with UTPs.