- (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) Shri Prakash Reddy, learned counsel for the respondent has raised an interesting question of law in this case. The admitted facts are that the Inspector of Police, Urban Police Station, Tenali, Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh had in a raid on 23/12/1986 seized 90 cassettes of various cinematograph films in Telugu, Hindi and English under a panchnama attested by Public Witness 2 from the video library belonging to the respondent and laid the charge-sheet for an offence under Section 52-A read with Section 63 of the Copyright Act, 1957 (for short, "the Act") as amended in 1984. The trial court after adduction of evidence of PWs 1 to 3 and production of Exs. P-1 and MO-1 convicted the respondent under Section 63 of the Act for minimum sentence of six months and also imposed a fine of Rs. 3,000. 00. In default, he was directed to undergo simple imprisonment for a further period of one month. On appeal, the Sessions Judge, Guntur confirmed the same. In Criminal Revision No. 665 of 1989 and CRC No. 666 of 1989 the High court of A. P. by judgment dated 17/9/1990 acquitted the respondent of the offence. Thus these appeals by special leave.
(3.) The facts as found and not in dispute are that the respondent had kept in his shop by name Video City, various cassettes numbering 90 in Telugu, English and Hindi cinematograph films exhibiting the same either for hire or sale to the customers. The question, therefore, is whether the respondent has committed infringement of a copyright or deemed infringement thereof. The Statement of Objects and Reasons to Amendment Act 65 of 1984 reads as under: "Piracy has become a global problem due to the rapid advances in technology. It has assumed alarming proportions all over the world and all the countries are trying to meet the challenge by taking stringent legislative and enforcement measures. The problem of piracy and the necessity for taking sufficient anti-piracy measures were also voiced by Members of Parliament at the time of the consideration of the Bill to amend the Copyright Act, 1957, last year. 2. Mainly there are three types of piracy, namely, piracy of the printed word, piracy of sound recordings and piracy of cinematograph films. The object of the pirate in all such cases is to make quick money and avoid payment of legitimate taxes and royalties. In respect of books, it is estimated that four hundred to five hundred titles are pirated every year in India and on each of the pirated titles, the loss to the government in the form of tax evasion amounts approximately to Rs. 11,000. 00. Apart from books, recorded music and video cassettes of films and TV programmes are reproduced, distributed and sold on a massive scale in many parts of the world without any remuneration to the authors, artistes, publishers and producers concerned. The emergence of new techniques of recordings, fixation and reproduction of audio programmes, combined with the advent of video technology have greatly helped the pirates. It is estimated that the losses to the film producers and other owners of copyright amount to several crores of rupees. The loss to government in terms of tax evasion also amounts to crores of rupees. In addition, because of the recent video boom in the country, there are reports that uncertified video films are being exhibited on a large scale. A large number of video parlours have also sprung up all over the country and they exhibit such films recorded on video tapes by charging admission fees from their clients. In view of these circumstances, it is proposed to amend the Copyright Act, 1957, suitably to combat effectively the piracy that is prevalent in the country. 3. The Bill provides, among other things, for the following amendments to the Act, namely- (I) to increase the punishment provided for the infringement of the copyright, namely, imprisonment of three years, with a minimum punishment of imprisonment of six months, and a fine up to Rs. 2 lakhs, with a minimum of Rs. 50,000. 00; (Ii) to provide for enhanced punishments in the case of second and subsequent convictions; (Iii) to provide for the declaration of the offence of infringement of copyright as an economic offence so that the period of limitation provided for in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, for offences will not be applicable to this offence; (Iv) to specifically make the provisions of the Act applicable to video films and computer programmes; (V) to require the producers of records and video films to display certain information in the records, video films and containers thereof. ";