COPYRIGHT OF MESSAGES ON WHATSAPP

^{COPYRIGHT OF MESSAGES ON WHATSAPP}

Copyright is a form of intellectual property right that confers a 'bundle of rights' on the author (or owner) with respect to the reproduction of the work and other actions that allows the owner to profit financially from exercising those rights. A copyright subsists in an original work that can be literary, artistic, dramatic, musical as well as cinematographic, according to the Indian Copyright Act. Section 51 describes copyright infringement in general. Copyright infringement means that the speech of a copyrighted work is copied without the authority of the owner of that copyrighted work. A long list of acts which do not constitute an infringement of copyright is provided in section 52.

Any person who receives, stores or transmits that message on behalf of another person or provides any service with respect to that message has been defined as an intermediary under the Information Technology Act, 2000. WhatsApp Messenger is a Facebook-owned freeware and cross-platform messaging and voice over IP (VoIP) service with more than 1 billion users in more than 180 nations. On 25 Feb 2017, WhatsApp revealed that in India it has 200 million monthly active users. It is very likely that users would post or publish copyright-protected content, given the large number of active users on the messaging platform. WhatsApp, however, uses end-to – end encryption, meaning that the business does not read the messages of users; making it difficult for Whatsapp to know all current copyrights and to cross-check any piece of information sent through its servers.

A person might want to think twice before posting a movie song or clip on WhatsApp. The WhatsApp policy includes an intellectual property, copyrights and trademarks section that explicitly states that it is "committed to helping people and organizations protect their intellectual property rights.” WhatsApp would not, however, crack down on all messages and copyright-infringing things. This would only happen if anyone reports the same and asks WhatsApp to delete any infringing material that it is hosting, which will mean screenshots of user accounts, profile names, and message status.

The policy states that while WhatsApp does not maintain "user messages in the ordinary course of providing our Services," if used as part of account information, they do host users' account information, including profile photos, profile names and status messages. WhatsApp, however, suggests that before a copyright infringement claim is made, it would be best to "send a message to the appropriate WhatsApp user that you think your WhatsApp may be infringing, asking for" information reasonably necessary to permit "to locate the material, which would mean the phone number of the person who sent the infringing content." WhatsApp 's legal policy of July 7, 2012 has no reference to intellectual property rights or copyright.

According to Section 51(a)(ii), any person who provides for profit, a place for such a communication which results in infringement of copyright and the said person has knowledge of such infringement is said to be liable for such infringement. Therefore, in order to make someone liable under section 51(a)(ii) of the Copyrights Act, the elements that are required are:

• Any place for release of information must be given for benefit by the individual;

• Communication should result in a person's copyright infringement;

• The person providing the place should know that the contact is in violation of the place of another

The key problem is the third condition, which is the perception by 'WhatsApp' of such infringement. In the landmark judgement of MySpace Inc. vs. Super Cassettes Industries Ltd, the definition of 'information' with respect to section 51(a)(ii) is addressed, relieving MySpace of user-uploaded content pre-screening. The court held that MySpace Inc. has millions of users and even more files. Its not possible for MySpace Inc. to search and monitor each and every file and to recognize all the copyrighted material available in the world. Only because a song is posted to the defendant's website, it can not be assumed that they have knowledge of whether or not the song allows others to infringe.

Most of the popularity of WhatsApp stems from its improved security features, including default end-to – end message encryption to avoid any unauthorized access to personal communications. The end-to – end encryption coupled with a large number of active ones, however, makes it difficult for Whatsapp to know all current copyrights and to cross-check any bit of data transmitted through its servers.

Therefore, in order to alleviate liability for secondary infringement pursuant to Section 51(a)(ii) and Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, WhatsApp has introduced all procedures that are possible. WhatsApp relieves the liability of intermediaries in relation to any third party information if the intermediary is able to show that the infringement was committed by a third party without its awareness. It would also be difficult to keep 'Whatsapp' accountable for its users' copyright violations. In addition, requiring whats app to breach end-to-end encryption to cross-check any bit of data sent through its servers would endanger user privacy and free speech; this could potentially cause Whatsapp to lose its market as much of the success of WhatsApp stems from its improved security features. Therefore, in order to prove copyright infringement on whats app, the owner of the copyright has to take necessary steps.

By:-

Raksha Singhal