The maic objectives of copyright law arc promoting the access and the use of
information md protecting the works from the infringement for encouraging
the authors in pursuit of knowledge. The technological dcvelopmcnts, the
increasing number of electronic publications and digital libraries pose challenges
to the right holders as well as law enforcing agencies. This paper briefly
discusses thc Indian Copyright Law. I957 and its amendments. The nature oi
electronic information including computer software is also discussed. The
authors mention about some of the worldwide projects to protect copyright of
electronic information. The authors conclude that the library professronals
should negotiate few electrocopying privileges for legitimale non-commercial
usage of electronic information similar to the kind of fair dealing arrangement
as in the case of printed books.
Intellectual Property Rights
'Intellectual property rights' (IPR) is a general term which covers
copyright, patents. registered designs and trade marks. It also covers layout
designs of integrated circuits, geographical indicators and anti-competitive
policies in contractual licenses (Intellectual Property Rights, 1995). As a lot
of money is involved in R&D work, &y research, innovation or invention
leading to a product, process, design, method, literary and artistic work etc
which may, in the view of authors or creators, result in financial gains are
registered under one or the other of the various heads of IPR. Developing
countries have evolved and setup benchmarks of IPR. The developing
countries are slowly catching up as the value of PR is increasingly felt.
Copyright
Copyright stands for the legal rights exclusively given for a definite
period of time to the originators (authors or creators) of intellectual work
such as a publication, or an artistic or a literary work for sale or any othe
