Publication

INTRODUCTION:
According to the dictionary meaning of the word Publication
is the act of bringing before the public. And according to the
general meaning of publication ‘printing of a matter’. The
term ‘publication’ means other things in some other
branches of law. In the law of patents, publication means
communication of information about invention to any
member of the public who may not bound by a duty to keep
it secret. Under the law of defamation the communication of
the defamatory matter to any person other than person
defamed.
Publication is a technical term in a legal contexts and
especially important in copyright legislation. In Copyright law
publication means making a work available to the public by
issues of copies or by communicating the work to the public.

STATUTORY DEFINITION OF THE PUBLICATION:

Section 3 of the Copyright Act states as follows:
“For the purposes of this Act ‘publication’ means making a
work available to the public by issue of copies or by
communicating the work to the public”.
Publication of an artistic work means making the work
available to the public by issues of copies or by
communicating the work to the public. Communicating of the
work to the public can be made through satellite or through
cable or through other means of communication to more
than household.
In case of computer programme, it can be published only by
issued copies for sale or for hire.
In case of artistic work, publication is made either by issue of
the work or by displaying the work to the public.
In architectural work, publication can be done only by
constructing a structure based on the plan in location where
it can viewed by the people.
There are two ways of publishing a work:
1. by issue of copies of the work.
2. by communicating the work to the public.

TIME OF PUBLICATION:
A work which is published in India is deemed to be first
published in India even if it is simultaneously published in
some other country.
A work will be deemed to be published simultaneously in
India and in other country if the time between the
publications in the two countries does not exceed thirty
days.
Copyright Board is the authority who has the power to
determine the question whether a work has been published,
the date on which it was published, whether the term of the
copyright is shorter in any other country than that provided
under the Act. The decision in the above matter by the
Copyright Board would be final.

PUBLICATION WITHOUT LISCENCE:

A work is not deemed to be published or performed in pubic,
if published in public published, or performed in the public
without the license of the owner of the copyright. This
however does not amount to infringement of copyright.

SALE OF COPIES AND PUBLICATION:

According to the definition publication means the issue of
copies, therefore it is not essential, to put the copies to sale.
And even single copy of the copyrighted work is circulated in
the market then also it amounts to publication.

FIRST PUBLICATION:
The first publication of work is important for determining the
subsistence of copyright.
Thus according to section 13 of the Act the copyright work
subsist in literary, musical, dramatic and artistic work
Only if the work is first published in India,
Or if it is published out of the country, the author at that
time was the citizen of India.
Or if the author is dead before the work was published
outside India, and at the time of the death of the author, he
was citizen of India.
And in the case of unpublished work other than the work of
architecture, the author is citizen of India at the date of
making of the
work.
In the case of the architectural work, the work is located in
India.
When there are several authors in a work, then in that case
the conditions have to be satisfied by all the authors of the
work.

PERFORMANCE OF THE WORK IN PUBLIC:

The publication of a musical work, sound recording, film or
television broadcast is the performance of the work in public.
Performance of the work in public would be when the work is
seen or heard in public.
In determining whether the performance has been in public
or not the following have to be kept in mind:
Whether the work has been performed publicly with or
without payment from attending public.
Whether the performance was in private.

CASE LAWS:
Garware plastics v/s Teleink.
Held: It was held that showing a video film over a cable tv
network to subscriber’s amounts to broadcasting video films
to the public and there is a sufficient publication of the work.
The entire audience taken together cannot be considered as
members of common household or family members.

Asia Industrial Technologies Limited v/s Ambiance Space

Sellers Ltd.
Held: The Court held that the defendants could not be
permitted to substitute the plaintiff’s advertisement with
their own.