The Death of Criticism: Moral Rights v Fair Dealing in the Indian Context

Copyright protection is a legal force which has the power to encourage creators/authors by creating propriety rights in intangible assets. However, its purpose is not limited to serving creators. It also has the onus to balance out the interests of the society by ensuring reasonable access of ideas to the publicat large. Moral rights and fair dealing exist at the two extremes of this incentive-access balance, necessitating friction incertain cases. This paper is aimed at highlighting a gap in the Indian legal context, where moral rights have become broad enough to pose a threat to fair dealing, particularly criticism, which is one of the most important aspects of development in any field. Pursuant to this aim, the paper puts forward an argument to subjugate moral rights to fair dealing through legislative amendments. Further, it suggests two judicial standards to navigate through the grey waters of the aforementioned friction.