Manupatra
It seems like the interest in India and India law is now on the swell. I received notice today of another Indian online legal research company, this time commercial, which I was unaware of: Manupatra.
This is the company information from their website:
Manupatra.com is India’s largest and most comprehensive online legal & business policy database. Manupatra revolutionized the way in which people do legal research in India. Since a humble beginning in 2001, we have come a long way in being the pioneers in online legal research in India. With 100 people across 15 cities, the company is the only legal publishing house with presence in all three segments of Print, CD Rom publishing & Online publishing.
Company’s suite of CD ROM products ‘Case Locator’ was launched in 2004. The product offerings include case laws across all subjects of law from all courts of India and subject specific CD’s.
The company forayed into Print in October 2005 with an objective of being a full fledge law publishing house. Apart from starting green field print ventures the company has been in a major acquisition mode of various Indian journals, titles and law publishing houses. The company aims to grow in this area through acquisitions, commissioning new titles and introducing new streams of legal publishing.
Manupatra’s mission is to be the preferred provider of decision support information to professionals in Legal, Business, Academic and Government markets and anyone who requires legal and business policy information.
It provides information, tools, and solutions to help professionals make their most critical decisions effectively and improve their productivity. Company’s range of information products encompasses traditional and new media formats including:
This in addition to the Indian Legal Information institute mentioned earlier in January on SLAW. And there is also Indlaw.
In this regard, mention should also be made that the next meeting of the International Association of Law Libraries will be in Mumbai from the 1st to the 5th of December. And while I’m at it, there is a good article on a great, but little known Indian novelist R. K. Narayan in the December 18th, 2006 issue of the New Yorker
Neil – it was a good article on RKN (not quite little known, he was Graham Greene’s favourite contemporary). But don’t think of the work as being “in translation”. His schooling was in English (or English language medium, as it’s now known in Tamil Nadu), and a very sophisticated English.
That shows in his prose, which is very nuanced and delicate, and shows every sign of having been informed by the great 19th Century stylists.
Slaw readers would also be interested in the order that resulted from an action against Manuputra and others for infringement for reproducing Supreme Court judgments – see http://www.ebc-india.com/pressrelease/cs_777_2005.pdf
the law had been setteld by the delhi high court that there is no copyright in the text of the judgements since the same is in public domain. this has furtehr been reitertaed by the supreme court (http://www.judis.nic.in/supremecourt/qrydisp.aspx?filename=30019)in their above judgement wherein they have held that the editing doen to judgements is not creative to accord coyright to the same.
The above order (http://www.ebc-india.com/pressrelease/cs_777_2005.pdf) was the result of a compromise reached which resulted from a frivolous ex-parte order.
Well Mr. Manupatra, first check your spellings. There are a lot of typos.
Second, even if there is no legally protected copyright in a text, that does not give the free right to others to pass it on as their own, especially when they are acting on a commercial basis.
So even though there may not be any copyright in the head notes etc. still you should have been ethically bound not to copy those. The fact that you did them and that no severe sanctions were imposed against you, is no reason to still go in vigrously defending the alleged wrongs which you have committed.
I am aware of the ground relaities behind the dispute and also of the legal publication markets in India to come to any other conclusion that this.
Hope these acts are not repeated in future.
Mr. Jain Facts first :
1.Manupatra has not copied any headnotes of any publisher. The company respects the copyright law in its complete spirit.
2. The law as laid down by the DB judgment of the Delhi HC and further reiterated by the SC judgement is that “there is a copyright in the headnote ” ( and not as mis understood by you “So even though there may not be any copyright in the head notes etc”)
3. Since the law itself says there is a copyright (point 2) there is no way that one can go against the law.
4. Do you have any idea of the process and the resources required to create a digital database from paper.. if you did you would not have made a loose statement such as “even if there is no legally protected copyright in a text, that does not give the free right to others to pass it on as their own…”.Kindly refrain from making statements of which you do not have a correct and full background . The company has not passed off anything as theirs which they have not created themselves.
Talking about ground realities ( relaities) and “legal publication markets in India ” as you claim you know about them , if you really did then you would not have cast wrong aspersions.as above
Kindly do not post mis-leading information.
And from what you write , are we saying that the learned division bench of the Supreme Court needs to take lessons from you on what is creativity and copyright?
HAppy New Year