The digital copyright time bomb in the BRIC economies, some ideas from the UK for the Indian market

The purpose of this work is to provide an overview of the current debate over copyright piracy and its control in Western countries, especially the use of graduated response laws in countries like the UK, and provide some thoughts and lessons on better responses that may be adopted in countries like India where evidence suggests the market in broadband access is rapidly developing, with associated piracy implications.

The work provides an overview of the current legal issues surrounding copyright piracy, and the most recent response of graduated response laws, together with the flaws in such responses. The author suggests through a coordinated strategy comprising four elements which will increase the success of on‐line businesses involving copyright works (particularly film and music) in attracting people who may traditionally turn to piracy.

Substantial losses as high as 40 per cent of revenues are reported by some copyright industries due to on‐line piracy. The legal responses so far have proved to be largely ineffective due to problems the author identifies. Further, the latest legal responses such as graduated response will also fail for reasons the author elaborates. It is argued that it is time to take a different more pragmatic and coordinated approach to on‐line piracy.

If the suggested copyright exploitation strategy is adopted and successful, legitimate copyright businesses may start to take market share from piracy and considerably increase their revenues.

The authors model with four interdependent pillars or legs postulates that a successful on‐line copyright business must have a fully coordinated, realistic and pragmatic approach to maximising revenues and minimising losses, as it is clear that legal regulation per se appears to be inadequate to this task.