Statutory licensing of copyright in music has been the subject matter of debate for past few years, particularly after the introduction of Section 31D to the Copyright Act in 2012. This article throws light on some historical justifications of the regime including ‘transaction cost related market failures’, ‘competition related benefit’; ‘incentive-access trade off’; ‘public good and externalities’; etc and touches upon the question as to how relevant these are in current times.
The article was first published in The Trademark Lawyer Issue 3 2021 on June 8th, 2021 and authored by Manisha Singh and Simrat Kaur