Originality After Eastern Book Company V. D.B. Modak: Has India Found Its Own Copyright Threshold
- IJLLR Journal
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
Sesha Dhriti Badiga, Woxsen University
ABSTRACT
Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Eastern Book Company & Ors. v. D.B. Modak & Anr. (2008) marked a fundamental change in Indian copyright laws, moving away from the classical “sweat of the brow” doctrine towards a slightly higher threshold for originality that takes into account the skill, judgment, and a very small amount of creativity involved. This paper discusses the situation after the decision, asking whether India has an exclusive copyright threshold, which is legal and socio-economic context based, or whether it simply conforms to the standards set by the US, UK, and Canada. By tracing the change in copyright doctrines before and after the Eastern Book case and comparing it with the U.S. “modicum of creativity” standard from Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service Co. and the Canadian “skill and judgment” test from CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of the Upper Canada, the research shows how the Indian Supreme Court brought together these methods to only allow the protection of derivative works as well as compilations when they show a level of intellectual effort exceeding mere labor. The hybrid approach was confirmed in cases like Relx India Pvt. Ltd. v. Eastern Book Company (2016) that came after 2008, as it was applied to various types of works such as databases, textbooks, game designs, etc. while public domain accessibility and Section 52 fair use of the Copyright Act, 1957 were highlighted. The critiques of the ruling, such as the vagueness of the term “flavor of creativity” and the risk of monopolies on public information, are discussed, along with the implications for the legal publishing sector, AI-generated content, and the dissemination of knowledge in a developing economy. In the end, the paper contends that India has really created its own limit—a realistic equilibrium of inventiveness and hard work that gives priority to accessibility and innovation, and it is thus different from the purely creativity-based models that are found in other places. This development raises the standard of copyright protection and at the same time nourishes a legal system that is very much tuned to the characteristics of India’s common law tradition and public interest requirements which are rooted in that tradition.
