Copyright Protection and Consumer Welfare

Abstract

Property rights always create a limited monopoly of the right holder. Intellectual property rights (IPR) came into existence in order to acknowledge and encourage creativity, for example, literary works, although in early days the provision was misused as a government policy. In the subsequent period, author’s rights over his creations, that is, copyright, was granted and later standardized in the international conventions. However, the trade-off between the author’s right over his creation and its public dissemination has always been a debatable question. The TRIPS agreement under WTO has set the copyright protection period for literary works at 50 years in order to ensure minimum protection necessary to induce authors to create and disseminate their works. Although India as a signatory to the WTO and other international conventions followed this norm, in 1991 the domestic regulation was amended to extend the period to 60 years. The driving motive was to facilitate availability of the works of Tagore, the first Nobel Laureate of India, by keeping the copyright with the right holder, Viswabharati, for 10 more years. In other words, strengthened property rights (and the consequent monopoly hold) were expected to augment consumer welfare. The article analyses outcomes of this regulation and concludes that the purpose has not been fulfilled, at least in the case of Tagore’s works.