Aishwarya continues her conversation with IP lawyer Sushrut Desai on how writers and creators can safeguard their work. How does copyright work for music, videos and theater? How will AI affect copyright? Tune in for some crowdsourced questions from the Bound community!
Sushrut Desai, is a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property rights and has also been a consultant for the Screenwriters Association in India. Find him on LinkedIn.
Aishwarya Javalgekar is a writer, book editor and podcast producer. As the Head of Originals she specializes in creating stellar content across formats - books, podcasts, newsletters, etc. She is a member of WICCI - Print Media and has a publishing certificate from Humber College and previous experience in Zubaan Books and Simon and Schuster Canada. Follow her on Linkedin, book a consultation call with her or drop her an email at aishwarya@boundindia.com.
Bound is one of India’s leading storytelling companies that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Produced by Aishwarya Javalgekar
Edited by Kshitij Jadhav
Aishwarya continues her conversation with IP lawyer Sushrut Desai on how writers and creators can safeguard their work. How does copyright work for music, videos and theater? How will AI affect copyright? Tune in for some crowdsourced questions from the Bound community!
Sushrut Desai, is a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property rights and has also been a consultant for the Screenwriters Association in India. Find him on LinkedIn.
Aishwarya Javalgekar is a writer, book editor and podcast producer. As the Head of Originals she specializes in creating stellar content across formats - books, podcasts, newsletters, etc. She is a member of WICCI - Print Media and has a publishing certificate from Humber College and previous experience in Zubaan Books and Simon and Schuster Canada. Follow her on Linkedin, book a consultation call with her or drop her an email at aishwarya@boundindia.com.
Bound is one of India’s leading storytelling companies that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Produced by Aishwarya Javalgekar
Edited by Kshitij Jadhav
Aishwarya 00:00
Okay, now coming to you, because I think we've covered a lot of copyright. But I want to know you as a person. So, you know, obviously now you're a lawyer, you work in, specifically in IP cases, you're working mostly with, you know, video, right, like film Ott, in order to be able to say, argue these cases effectively, is it that you also need to have information about, you know, how the production works beyond the script, like details of how the production works? Or how the format works in order to be able to find the cases? Or is it just sort of having an idea of the format? is enough?
00:40
Oh, no, in fact, in fact, the beauty of litigation is that you have to be neck deep in whichever industry are arguing in whichever industry your case relates to, you need to be neck deep in that. So I absolutely would it's not an academic discipline. It's a very practical discipline, it's something that requires you to be aware of the industry practices. And the more the more knowledge you have of those, the more you can, the better you can assist the court in understanding what actually has happened, what should have happened. Things like that. So yeah, you can't be a hermit only studying academically. Yep.
Aishwarya 01:21
But do you ever end up going on, say set? Or like, you know, are you ever involved in the shoots? Or, you know, I mean, like, quite physically these processes that take place when a film is made?
01:36
No, no, I would never be on shoot. Mostly because you like to? I mean, I be curious. Sure. It'll be fun. But it I don't, I doubt it will really add anything to what I have to do. Most of my knowledge comes when people come to us, so we will have a producer come into our office, and he will tell us, this is the thing, this is my director, this is what it is why they'll show me the documents, they'll prepare, you know, information that shows me what that is. Because, I mean, otherwise, it becomes frankly, just too time consuming. And the other problem is, is the physical problem, because I mean, the yo yo you also live in Mumbai, you know, where a High Court is located at the southernmost tip of the city. Right and for and where where the film industry is, which is all the way in like an area and always, that's a trick that we don't usually make.
Aishwarya 02:33
Yeah, no, that's it in terms of copyright also, you know, because obviously, with not fails your document, specifically this correct. But if we look at your legal format, like video versus something in writing, you know, versus say a song. Are there any changes in the copyright laws based on the format in which your final piece is? Because I know, for example?
02:57
That's a great question. Because most of what we've said, so far pertains to the written word, though, it's, it's very important to know that our musical work is also copyrighted. It is equally protected, because it is a unique artistic work. Not only that, but the film that your script eventually becomes, is copyrighted in and of itself. Right. It is known, it's known quite archaically in the copyright act as a cinematography film. So yeah, so the cinematograph film is has its own copyright. And once that comes into creation, once that comes into being once that is published, as it were, your script becomes the underlying book of that. When a song is put out, the lyricist work becomes the underlying work in the song. The composer, office song is also the underlying words in the eventual song, along with the writer.
Aishwarya 04:02
Yeah, like the melody is a separate copy. Right? The lyrics are separate words are a separate copy, right?
04:07
But then they all merge into the final look, which is why everything else is called underlyings.
Aishwarya 04:13
Okay, yeah, because I remember at some point during my undergrad reading basic media law, and I remember that even performances are copyrighted, right? Like if there's a theater performance that happens, there are these sort of some nuances of if a theater performance is recorded and then put on online then that video is copyrighted. Naturally, these kind of no answers as
04:36
well. It's a cinematography, right? It is moving pictures and audio. And it is an original artistic book. So it's so cinematic, I feel minutes protected.
Aishwarya 04:47
Yeah. So okay, what about you, are you You know, because it's the book people, so I have to talk about books. So you know, do you read books? Are you a reader? What kind of books do you read?
04:57
Yeah, man. I'm an avid reader. I've been reading And I've been reading all my life it's it's something that's given me tremendous joy all my life. I don't think I could have got I could not have passed my ICAC because of all that pressure without if I didn't have PG what else? I think I read like for TPG wheras novels in my 10 standard
Aishwarya 05:22
classics, your tastes.
05:23
Yeah in my mind my grandfather who's also a lawyer and my father, who's not a lawyer are both avid readers. So, so a lot of PG Woodhouse Alistair McLean, World War two novels, even older stuff like Robert Louis Stevenson kidnapped things like Call of the Wild, Last of the Mohicans, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, all of Roald Dahl. And then after I grew up, things like rashly Murakami. I read everything that he puts out, he's incredible, who has me look up on my bookshelf. Who else are Cynara and obviously, us? Mumbai Noir is a book I'm reading right now, which I'm absolutely enjoying. Then you're joined by Lady Joseph, hello, things like that.
Aishwarya 06:23
You read any Marathi books?
06:28
I can't read. So the problem is, I mean, it's entirely my fault. But after me, if I were to blame somebody, I would blame my school board, which only yours. So. So within Marathi is something that I never got into, we obviously speak it at home. But written that is something I never got into. But every time I would be sick, as a kid, my mother would put in cooler the spandex tapes, and I'd be holed up in bed listening to that.
Aishwarya 06:58
I was just going to ask you about Pula Deshbandhu. Because, you know, obviously, I am also not much of a Marathi reader or a speaker at this point. But it's just one of the classic names, you know, when you think oh, my gosh, funding
07:11
is the greatest scandal we've had and one Oh, and then most people don't know.
Aishwarya 07:15
Yeah, I in. During university, I also had in one of my literature courses, we had this exercise where we could take a short story in a non English language like whatever mother tongue was, or whatever. And we could translate it into English. And I had actually translated one of Polish Monday's short stories. It was very bad translation.
07:39
That was funny, but no translation.
Aishwarya 07:42
It was very difficult to translate the humor example and translate the nuances of the humor. There's also a Marathi humor. How do you take that and put it in English and kind of
07:54
know, it's very difficult? Have you seen this? This one that came up recently for zombie Willie?
Aishwarya 08:00
No, there's a movie about zombie really, like,
08:03
it is too good. But zombies about zombies and don't be really, as, and it's a brilliant satire. And it's a great movie. And I mean, I've showed it to all my non non Maharashtrian friends and whatever, but they get maybe about 60% of the humor. It's a very funny movie. Yeah. Like, is that typical and Marathi jokes? That is, I mean, I'm like all the Asian languages that you need to speak it to understand it.
Aishwarya 08:29
So merely such a good name, did not have to explain it any further. I was like, we don't really sense. You're solid. I'm sorry, that would read. Watch that. What is the most common or what is the funniest misconception or you know, story have come across in terms of intellectual property where people think that this is something that I own IP for, or that I basically copyright for? And I can
08:56
fight? Is this really, though? I mean, the funniest thing is, there are people who come in with like, a small germ of an idea saying HUMIRA and they want to stop everybody. And then then creating bad idea from creating that and then I maybe have to ask them, aren't they these are the 10 movies are being made in other countries, you please go stop them also. And
Aishwarya 09:19
it's like, sometimes ideas are very unique. And I'm not saying that, Oh, we should be able to copyright ideas. But I give you example of this. I'm sure there are other books at this point. I have not looked it up. There might be but you know, this book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the gradebook? Yeah, like that in itself, just the concept, right? Even before it was written, which is okay, here is this child, you know, who clearly? Yeah, yeah. And it's sort of that narrative of, you know, how people on the spectrum thing and that child trying to solve this mystery of this dog neighbor's dog who died like that, that itself as a concept is so unique
09:58
right now. Bring that Electra break that down? Is it unique to have to write to tell a story about an autistic child? Not? Is it unique to tell a story about Amina literally solve a mystery. Maybe it's a little unique, but it's not something we've never seen before. And like we all read the goal of the Dragon Tattoo, how big a leap is it's on there to think of a younger person doing a similar thing. Now, is it unique that of a boy who's autistic, investigating mysteries investigates a mystery of a neighborhood dead dog. Now it's getting pretty unique, right? So you see what's happening, the more layers the layers of it, the more unique elements that you can show us strung together in a very particular manner. Then that is what the code means when it says that we will protect the specific expression of an idea. So this is a very specific expression of the idea. And only that version of it will be protected. Not other versions.
Aishwarya 11:08
Right? So hypothetically, say I decide to write a book, which is an autistic child who is a boy. Okay, who is again trying to solve the mystery of his neighbor's dog being dead? Right, but the end of the mystery The conclusion is different, which is what he ultimately sort of soils its second Mumbai. Yeah. Is that a completely original thing that has no copyright infringement?
11:39
I mean, if you if you properly set it in Bombay and have unique characters in Bombay that feel authentic and real, then yeah, it's not a copyright infringement at all.
Aishwarya 11:49
Right? Yeah. So the writing obviously the benefits the writing the details matter
11:54
what Sarkar right? Yeah. So is Sarkar got copyright infringement or Mario Puzo's godfather? It's not,
Aishwarya 12:07
it was very clearly giving an oath to it. So it was not trying to innovate, hide the fact that it is inspired by you know, because
12:17
this is why, which is why it's an even better case, whichever. It's an even better example, when you were trying to hide it. You're talking about an example where a person attempts to hide it. I'm saying look at a case where he hasn't tried to hide it. Even there as a layperson, you've been you will not think that it's copyright infringement. Right,
Aishwarya 12:31
right. Because a lot of these cases, right, where they will say, okay, inspired by this, and it's clearly like, there are similar tropes. But this is clearly different enough for you to not think that this is like the difference between inspiration and pleasure is such a thin line to work. This is a very
12:48
thin line to work on, which is why I tell all all my writers don't think you're going to be able to successfully work on that line. You know, because obviously, the defense will be that it may be it was inspired.
Aishwarya 13:00
Yeah. What if someone has a you know, say, I want to write a book or a script about recent events that happened in India, right? How can people safeguard IP with that, say, if it is nonfiction, then it will come in this documentary, True Crime sort of zone. And no one was obviously safeguarding IP but second was also just illegally safeguarding themselves.
13:27
That's that's also a great question. Because here we have a variance between what the law is and what the practices so the law is that no person has a copyright on his own life. Your life is not a work of art. Life is just your life.
Aishwarya 13:45
Right? That's so sad.
13:50
So if if you are a public figure, and the things you have done, unknown to people, you cannot stop them from telling that story. On the ground that it is your story and you have copyrighted it you can't do it. So which is why you had in one year in Bollywood,
14:12
three movies on Bhagat Singh.
14:15
In one year, we saw three movies three different people playing Bhagat Singh, not one of those producers could accuse the other of plagiarism because it was a real failure. The descendants of Bhagat Singh couldn't stop any of it saying or a hamara copyright case at the time, because the man is a public figure is a national hero, his life is well documented. We all know what he did. And his story belongs to the public. It was one of his part of public discourse. It is what is known in the public domain.
Aishwarya 14:40
What about these sent examples? For example, you know, the movie no one killed Jessica, which was you know, based on a very like recent thing, especially with true crime, you know, a lot of these true crime, whether it's movies, podcasts, books kind of coming up that question comes again and again, right or there was the whole jolly Joseph case, which became which was turned into a podcast, you know, a true crime podcast. So these very similar things is something that happened five years ago, which today I decided to write a book on, or, you know, I use AI to make a film out of what are the rights there, because one is obviously the person say it's a murder case, right. So one is obviously the, say the accused who is alive, but then it also involves other family members, or say other people involved who are alive who will get affected. You know,
15:37
this is exactly where your difference between the law and the practice comes in. Because even though the law tells you that these people don't have copyright in their lives, practically speaking, they can still file a defamation case against you. That is something we saw with a Phoolan Devi documentary that is something we saw very recently in Delhi, with this new movie about France. With the Hansal Mehta film with Zan, Kapoor, the, which was based on a terrorist attack in taka, where one Indian girl died, and the Indian girl's family moved the Delhi High Court trying to stop the movie from being released. Now, obviously, she couldn't stop it on the ground that I have copyright in my daughter's life. But the attempt was bigger and obviously bigger, bigger, because that's not an argument that's going to fly. But the argument that was made is that you are, by, in that sense, imagining and fictionalizing what would have happened in that cafe and casting my daughter as one of the characters there, because we all know that it was my daughter in there, You are defaming her after her death, you're violating her right to privacy. And, and therefore you must be stopped. And therefore this movie cannot be reused. Now, practically, what would happen is filmmakers like this would take NOC from all people involved. But this may be one family that perhaps didn't want to give the NOC. And perhaps I mean, I don't know any of this. I'm just hypothetical. Hypothetically, I'm just using this for as incident as a, as a sort of jumping off point for a similar such situation. Where they said that you're defaming me you are, you're defaming my daughter, you are sort of tarnishing her memory, and you're violating our right to privacy. And the court after initially giving an injunction at the at the had interim stage. Finally, when it heard the the application, it said that no, you don't have the right to privacy, unfortunately, once your story becomes public. And that's
Aishwarya 17:47
how important is news in this sense, you know, because is it that the story is public, because there was so much news coverage about it, say it was an incident that did not have news coverage, and so was not publicly known for that effect?
18:01
It depends. It depends what your sources are. If your sources are public domain, then it's fine. But what I mean by that is, if your source is a trial that happened in an open court, where anybody was allowed to come, but practically only you showed up, and you took notes, that's fine, you can tell that story, nobody can stop you. But I would still advise you. And this is a practice that is followed in India to sign something known as a life rights agreement, I would still advise such a person that Please sign it for whatever it is worth, because at the back end, it will prevent you from being sued for defamation. And at the good end, you might get some stories that you would not otherwise have got without sitting down with this person, and merely sitting in voting, taking notes or reading newspaper articles.
Aishwarya 18:43
Yeah. Okay. And this is this is true for both fiction and nonfiction. And whether as a creator, you want to make a fictionalized version, or whether you want to make a nonfiction.
18:54
Obviously, obviously, nonfiction, you really must do it in any documentary, because you're literally going to be possibly showing their face taking their real name. In fiction, there is a little more wiggle room if you change their name, change the character's name. But as we saw in the case of this film for us, even though the name for us was real, the other names were fictionalized. And that didn't stop a case from being filed didn't stop an injunction from being granted for several months.
Aishwarya 19:24
Okay, what about AI? You know, there's all this conversation now happening about AI and the ethics of AI and how it's gonna take over, you know, for all the creators and everyone will be left sort of jobless. So, you know, when I was reading up on copyright, I saw this thing about how in 2021 there was a painting called Serious for which an AI world Rocco was recognized as a co author, because there was someone you know, using the AI, but they decided to sort of put the AI I'm using an AI, write a book. And then the book is sort of copyrighted as co authored by me and this AI. So and that was something that was, you know, granted. So what does that mean? It's for, you know, for copyright law for creators who want to, whether it's writers or whether, you know, it's sort of digital creators. What does this mean for the future?
20:29
So firstly, I should say we are at a very, very, very nascent stage in this. And the way, the way this law, the way any law in sort of Frontier territory like this works is we make mistakes, we will be because everybody, including the judges, the lawyers, the industry, everybody's trying to find it, find what is the fair ground now now this example that you gave other AI is credited as the co author. It's, it's interesting, we should see where this takes us, though. One, though, something that I would say immediately on hearing that is that the AI itself is a program. Right? The AI is a piece of software, and under existing copyright law. A software is copyrightable and has an owner, it has an author. When you say the AI is the author, are you saying that the author of the AI is daughter?
Aishwarya 21:32
Right? So then if I alter an AI, then any piece of work that gets created using that AI? Does that mean that I am an author of or like I'm a co author in a way in all of those pieces? Right?
21:49
It would be very dangerous if that was so Because see, on the positive side, is this serious the painting made with an aim is gonna mill Yeah, and while Miko Painter is an AI, but think of the flip side of it. If this creator of the AI wants to say that, Oh, don't put that he has me input my name, because I'm the author of that program that did this, then he's also going to be liable for all the, for all the infringement. And and this is something that we are seeing a lot with things like Dali, and you know, a lot of these image generation AI programs may journey things like that, where I can literally put in, make me something in the style of say, Rohan Joglekar. Now, Ron Joglekar is a is a very prominent up and coming Indian artist. And if I say make me a painting of this thing in the style of Ron Joglekar, they will do it, the AI. But the way they will do it is it will find Ron Joglekar paintings, scrub off whatever are the similarities, and just rearrange some of those elements and put them into my work and write me, Rohan would be absolutely justified in being furious that his work is being used to create new works without any attribution to him without any royalties being paid to him. And then who's responsible for that? That is also the author of their AI program. Yeah. And then why did you create an AI that steals art? Right? Firstly, there is no law written, right? There is no, currently the copyright law says that a human being only can create art. Now some of that was challenged with a monkey selfie, I don't know if you know about this, there was there was a monkey in a forest selfie with a camera that a photographer left and that That photo was published by a magazine without paying the guy who owned the camera, the photographer, the photographer, saying that this is not your photo, this this photo was taken by a monkey. So so you don't have on it. So So what's what's happening is that like these edge cases, are are just that they are edge cases like like, you can't set ground rules on the basis of edge cases. But at some point on time with this profusion in AI art, with the blurring of the lines, especially in digital art, between what is a tool and what is AI. But that's going to be blurred if I'm if I'm making something on an iPad with a pen, and I use that software that can mimic a brush or a sketch pen or a pencil or whatever. Is it that much of a leap from there to use, have the help of an AI signatures do a little bit shading, a little bit of clouds there. So is it a question or is it a difference in degrees? Or is there a difference in category? These are the kind of questions are going to have to be answered. And there's going to have to be legislation and that's not going to be the end of it. We have the word word what we You sometimes flippantly called the third house of Parliament, which is the courts. So the Indian courts will have to weigh in on that. And and only then, possibly years later, can we have an authoritative answer to this question?
Aishwarya 25:13
Yeah, for sure. There'll be years of back and forth and, you know, changes based on also new things that will keep coming up, right. Because even AI now, people are kind of starting to realize, and use that. So even I think that will keep evolving. Yeah. In terms of whether I agree with you that that question of you know, whether it's a tool, whether it's a creator in itself, and then how do we credit
25:37
questions right now?
Aishwarya 25:39
Yeah, comes important. Okay. I have a few crowdsourced community questions. These were all of mine. So the first one is, you know, in terms of because we discussed, for example, the idea of public domain, right, once something is created, obviously, for around 60 years, I think, depends me just after the death of the Creator. Yeah, in that six years after the death of the Creator, right, which is the same as UK, but not us.
26:11
Yeah. Us. They get to protect Mickey Mouse. But that's also run out now.
Aishwarya 26:17
Yeah. Is that why they're extending it? For Mickey Mouse?
26:20
Ravioli from Mickey Mouse. And now and now Disney has finally changed its mascot, it's no longer going to be Mickey Mouse. So finally they allowing copyright to lapse and allowing into the public domain. Yeah, that's pretty much the only reason why America is different. Because Disney is that powerful.
Aishwarya 26:38
That's really cool. When something gets in, you know, is a part of the public domain. What rights does the work still have like wonders, obviously, I can reproduce it as is and call it what it originally is, right? Say if it is ancient, Kike hernia, or, you know, recently, I was looking at like Agatha Christie novels. And now some of them are slowly starting to come into the public domain. So say if I couldn't do a print run of one of the novels that is in the public domain, but I call it the same title, and I put a garter crystal in itself is fine. And I can make money off of that. What if I take two chapters from that novel? And I put it in my novel and I put a book out there? Is there still copyright infringement?
27:24
Oh, the only right that somebody like Agatha Christie, or whoever would have after that, as if, if their works are published, is the right of attribution. Which means tell people that I was the one wrote it. That's it. Print it. That's how Sherlock Holmes is published all over in by like, every Indian publisher has some version of Sherlock Holmes some version in some publication of Sherlock Holmes. And, and all of it is legal, because you're calling you're saying that so Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it, and then it's fine.
Aishwarya 27:58
Yeah. Cool. We also discuss NDAs. Before and, you know, you also mentioned some red flags for writers to look at in contracts, within endears itself. Are there any red flags or any verbiage that people should look out for like can ndS also be exploited?
28:18
So I know, this is something that that there is a bit of a panic around in the industry. And it's because of this reverse NDA I was telling you about where the producers will hand you a two pager to sign my personal view is that it's okay. I know a lot of that language seems like it's quite harsh and attacking you. Because it says things like, Oh, we do lots of projects, we have lots of projects in development. Maybe one project that we have in development is like your project. So then, you know, you never know. And then the writer gets scared that oh, what are you saying? Are you going to use it against me? My view of the matter is, it's actually a very good thing if it says that, because then when I go to code, I will say that see, you made me sign this document that said that you may have these other projects. Now that we are seeing this alleged plagiarism happen. This surely must have been one of those other projects that were in development from before. So just show the code that it was in development before. And that's the end of the matter, I'll lose the case I'll go out. Right,
Aishwarya 29:15
it puts that onus on the producer saying hey, oh, if you are saying that this was something that you were working on already, prove it,
29:22
show it show to the court. Okay. Make sense? So I have those those ideas personally, though, I know writers really like show from them. But I think they get insulted by the language more than anything else.
Aishwarya 29:37
I think all contracts, you know, whether it's publishing contracts, I have noticed with writers as far as I have any kind of contract is contracts are scary. Yeah. Because of the language you know, and so much of it is just seems like normal words, but they mean something else legally than they do when sort of even starting a conversation. That field of you know, even if I'm reading it, I'm not able to actually interpret or I'm reading it a certain way. But someone else can just come and say, Oh, but that's not what it meant. You're I'm interpreting it differently.
30:08
I know I know. It's scary, I fully sympathize, because it it is it is very opaque it is written in, in roundabout language, especially some of the bigger contracts that come from the from the bigger producers, it is deliberate, that it is written in a roundabout manner, it is intended to confuse you. And it is intended to intimidate you. That is the point of it. So
Aishwarya 30:36
I fully sympathize. What is What can writers do about it? Oh, I think
30:46
definitely have your contracts read by a professional. It's accessible. Now, it's not so expensive. And especially if you think that your work, what you're working on is something that's very valuable to you very close to something that you want to protect, then put in that investment. If you think of yourself as a businessman and not an artist, then you wouldn't mind investing a little bit of money in yourself, you know, especially because it can really protect you in the long run. And then once you do it a few times, once you get professional advice a few times, I guarantee you it's not complicated. Third time around,
Aishwarya 31:24
you know, and it's also a learning curve. It's not that every time you will need the same amount of professional advice. It's like once maybe, if you know then the next time you also know that there are these words that you need to look out for or kind of learn from that.
31:40
All the professional screenwriters who I know who are like 1520 years plus in the industry, they are they're as good lawyers as I am they'll send me a contract mocked up saying, Oh, this this, I don't like it. You should What do you think? Problem? i I said, let's say I asked her, but our problem is, we already know.
Aishwarya 31:57
It's another skill set, right? It's like the way that you're learning as a writer to kind of I wouldn't say write better, but you're learning new techniques, you're learning new tropes are kind of growing in terms of skills as a creator, as a writer, this is just one of the skill sets that you need to also grow in almost simultaneously. It's like if you're creating when also brush up on your legal abilities,
32:23
when he says do it, right. Why not you?
Aishwarya 32:26
Yeah, that's true. I don't think producers just seem like this like big bad. Even if they're small companies or independent producers, I think it's just a perception of, Oh, me this individual like David and Goliath, very,
32:38
they like to give the impression, it's not true at all an illusion. They like to give the impression, though, on on the entry on the door of Swa Nasha. There used to be this line, it was literally painted out on a printed owner who's capturing it said without the writer, all you have in a film is a blank piece of paper. So I think it's high time that writers also start realizing their own power, their own influence they have in the West, and now we are starting to realize it here also.
Aishwarya 33:14
That's a good one. Okay, I have one question. Last question. That was crowd sourced, I find this question very interesting. So you know, how we like spoke a little bit about music as well. So someone has asked what are the laws around using music or you know, lyrics of a song in a book. So say in a book, they want to mention the lyrics of a song and sort of put them or say, Oh, this character was listening to the song. That's how much of the music in the bottle
33:45
if you're, if you're quoting lyrics, you know, in a book, that's absolutely fine. It's literally I mean, these are all pieces of pop culture, there's, there's no reason why they can't be referenced. These are all things in the public domain. What you can do for anybody who has this doubt in their head is what can I do content on this axis? Broadly, you can't make money off of that. So you can't print their lyrics in a book of 50 greatest lyrics and sell it. Right. Okay. But if you have a character who, who says, I think I'm under law, for example, to another character in a book, there's no way that anyone's gonna catch on, I can say that line was my song and other doesn't, that would fail.
Aishwarya 34:25
Whatever character is actually listening to music. It's like, oh, they're listening to music, or they're singing the lyrics, you know, like, oh, it's like, oh, this character went on stage and they're singing a song. And then it's the full entire lyrics of that song just printed for Batum on the page. Is that a problem? Mostly,
34:41
I would, I'd like to see the editor who agrees to publish something that I will be extremely boring to have the entire lyrics put out there. So practically, I don't know if that's ever gonna happen. But, yeah, I mean, you shouldn't be reproducing wholesale. And I don't think that any occasion would arise to reproduce something Make that wholesale. And it would be judged in the context of of what the work is. If the work stands on its own footing, if the work is an original literary work, then merely because it coats some other works, it's not going to be, it's not going to be considered an infringement. But the situation is very different in a film. In a film, if you have a character listening to a song, you can listen to a song unless you have a license to play it. Yeah. So we're talking about books here, you know, in a film, yeah, like even on
Aishwarya 35:34
podcast, right? You need to license any music that has been played, even if it has a snippet, or you know, a part of it, it needs to be licensed to have those, you know, like, to be able to play that music. And it needs to be credited. Yep. All of those things. So music licensing has become its own thing, especially now. I mean, it always was, but as audio storytelling is growing podcasts are you know, more and more people are creating podcasts. I think that is something that people actually don't realize where, you know, they use music, or now there are a lot of these royalty free sites. Yeah, right online, where you just get royalty free music, but a lot of time it's not. Yeah, so I know, like a lot of podcasters end up using it. I think it's happening now, even in advertisements where a couple of times advertisers have used some music, which then later it's identify that it's an original by a musician, and it's, yeah, you can't do that. So I have a very short, very quick, rapid fire. Okay. I just be asking you questions, if you can answer as soon as possible. Quickly. Sure. Yeah. The first one is very easy. So books or movies. Books. Okay, this was the easiest one. I think this might not be a rapid fire, but let's try it out. One thing all writers should do to safeguard their work.
37:09
Do everything in writing. Make sure everything is in writing. Make sure there's a
Aishwarya 37:13
paper trail. Yep. Yeah. Love that word. That term. Okay. If you weren't a lawyer, what career would you want to pursue? What would you be?
37:26
I wanted to be a marine biologist for the longest time because I love being in the water. I love scuba diving. So if I didn't have to live in the city and own a living, I probably probably be researching whales in Tonga or something like that.
Aishwarya 37:41
That's really cool. I'm sure I mean, I know people who make a living doing that just not that good.
37:47
So connect later for to see if I can go and die with them.
Aishwarya 37:51
Yeah, for sure. One book that you think everyone should read?
37:57
If you're an Indian, or without a doubt, Midnight's Children. It's one of the greatest stories of our founding and a lot of people get scared of Salman Rushdie. I don't know why. Just get into it. Give it 50 pages, you'll understand how he talks how his voice and then it's a breeze. And don't look back. Also the Ibis trilogy by myth approach, which is also one of the greatest Indian stories in my opinion ever told. I don't know why it's not a series that will be the greatest
Aishwarya 38:20
series. Maybe they're working something out. Let's see. Yeah. Okay, my last question is any sort of what is one thing that you want to say to writers or creators in India?
38:36
Don't have an inferiority complex? Certainly not with producers.
Aishwarya 38:42
That's a good one. I think that's something every writer needs to hear any creator to Dale's don't have an inferiority complex. Yeah. Thank you so much. For my I hope you had fun talking about Yeah.
38:57
No, no, I had a lot of fun. It was great. It's a lot of fun.
Aishwarya 39:01
Thank you so much for being a part of this and for being a part of the book people and I'm sure that writers will get a lot of you know, they're just going to be making notes with all the points that you've made about how they can always