Lawmatters.in

Some time ago, the Egyptian government was reported to have been contemplating copyrighting the pyramids. No one knew how they planned to do so or, for that matter, how they planned to take action against would-be infringers. After a while, the reports died down and no one seems to be quite certain what happened to the government’s plans.

The Indian High Commission at Dhaka seems to have missed both the controversy and the amusement it gave rise to in legal circles. According reports, the High Commission (or perhaps just its spokesman) threatened to invoke copyright laws against a Bangladeshi businessman named Ahsanullah Moni who’s building a replica of the Taj Mahal in Bangladesh.

Indian copyright law does protect works of architecture to an extent. Their artistic character or design is protectable and so are models for buildings provided the buildings are located in India. In other words, buildings which look like boxes cannot be protected by copyright law, and whether or not the buildings are shaped liked boxes, copyright protection does not extend to processes or methods of construction.

Most importantly, copyright protection lasts for sixty years after the death of the author if the work is published during the lifetime of the author. By no stretch of the imagination can copyright exist in the Taj Mahal. If not anything else, it was built long before copyright protection existed.

Never mind the practical implications of claiming that structures such as the Taj have such protection. Every keychain and model maker would then have to obtain a licence before selling their wares whether to tourists or others. And it’d be interesting to see just how such a requirement was enforced.