EASTERN BOOK COMPANY V. D.B. MODAK (2008) 1 SCC 1

EASTERN BOOK COMPANY V. D.B. MODAK (2008) 1 SCC 1

 

FACTS

  • Eastern Book Company A (1) and Eastern Publishers Pvt. A (2) are the Appellant (A) who are into publishing law books. The appellant publish law report containing Supreme Court cases by the name of “Supreme Court Cases (SCC)”. The case are procured from the register of the Supreme Court.
  • The judgement are copy edited and several inputs such as font, paragraphing are made so as to make it user friendly. Along with the changes in the judgement, it also has head notes and foot notes which are prepared by the A (3) Surendra Malik. The Respondents(R) have created a software which is published on a CD ROM by the name of Grand Pix and The Law and the R’s have copied the whole module from the SCC on to the CD ROM.

 

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

  • EBC moved to the court before the single bench judge of the Delhi High Court claiming for temporary injunction as the R’s has constituted infringement by copying the copy edited version of the judgement prepared by EBC.
  • The Single Judge Bench did not grant injunction and held that the edited judgement was not copyright and hence there is no infringement. The R conceded that the A had a copyright over the headnote and the footnote and hence agrees to not copy them.
  • Aggrieved by the decision the A moved to Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, the court also didn’t grant them temporary injunction and allowed them to sell the CD ROM and held that by making some changed the original judgement it does not change the characteristic of the judgement and hence it doesn’t constitute as original work. The court didn’t accept the A case and hence forth the present decree lie.

 

ISSUES

  • What shall be the standard of originality in a derivative work to get © protection and what requirement need to be there for its fulfilment?
  •  Whether the whole copy-edited version of the judgement will be entitled for © or only entitled to some of the inputs made in the judgement?

HELD

  • The court gave the decision in the favour of A’s. The court held that for a derivative work to have © protection it should show that the derivative work should be more than a just mere copy of the original work and it should have authors own independent skill, labour and capital. The court stated that © has nothing to do with literary merit of the work.
  • The court just need to evaluate whether the skill employed is not of trivial or negligible but substantial. The court also held that the R’s should not copy the paragraphs made by the A for its internal referencing and nor should the R’s use the view of the judges regarding their view as to whether they have a dissenting or concurring in the Case.
  • The court came to this conclusion after taking into account whether the derivative work is original work of the author and whether he has spent independent skill, labour and judgement in preparing it and that it is just not a mere copy of the original work. Secondly the judges have also taken into account that the changes made by the author in the derivative work are of substantial work and is not of trivial nature.
  • Thirdly the judges have applied the principal of “Sweat of the brow” which means that the author deserves to be reward for the skill. Fourthly the court referred to the principle of minimal degree of creativity that states that there should be a minimal level of creativity in the derivative work in deciding the issue whether the copy edited judgement would qualify as original work or not.
  • The Court did grant interim relief to the plaintiff-appellants by directing that though the respondent shall be entitled to sell their CD-ROMS with the text of the judgments of the Supreme Court along with their own head notes, editorial notes.
  • It was further directed by the courts that the respondents shall not use the paragraphs made by the appellants in their copyedited version for internal references and their editor's judgment regarding the opinions expressed by the Judges by using phrases like concurring', 'partly dissenting', etc. on the basis of reported judgments in SCC.
  • The judgment of the High Court was modified to the extent that in addition to the interim relief already granted by the High Court, the above-mentioned additional relief to the appellants was also granted.

 

NOTE

  • It is derived from this case that even in a derivative work if the author has applied his own skill, labour and judgement then it will be entitled to © protection. The court in such cases need not look in the literary merit of the work but just that the some skill is involved. In case where the copy edited version is created then the changed that require a skill or judgement should be considered original work and should be entitled to © protection.