Eastern Book Company v. D.B. Modak

Facts

• Eastern Book Company (EBC) published SCC (Supreme Court Cases) with copy-edited versions of Supreme Court judgments
• The SCC editions included original headnotes, editorial notes, paragraph numbers, cross-references, and standardised formatting
• D.B. Modak published a competing CD-ROM database that reproduced the SCC copy-edited text, including their headnotes and editorial enhancements
• EBC claimed copyright infringement; Modak argued that judgments are government works and cannot attract copyright

Issue

1. Whether copyright subsists in the edited versions of judicial pronouncements published by SCC, particularly in headnotes, cross-references, and editorial enhancements added to the raw judgment text.

Held

• Raw judgment text as delivered by judges is not copyrightable, being government work in the public domain under Section 52(1)(q)
• However, the editorial enhancements (headnotes, paragraph numbering, cross-references, editorial notes) added by SCC involve sufficient creativity to attract copyright
• The court rejected the "sweat of the brow" doctrine as the sole basis for originality
• India adopts a modicum of creativity standard: there must be some minimal degree of intellectual creation, not merely labour or investment
• Copying the raw text is permissible; copying the creative additions constitutes infringement

Ratio Decidendi

Copyright in India requires a modicum of creativity beyond mere labour or industrious collection. While judgments delivered by courts are in the public domain, the editorial work of a law reporter in creating headnotes, providing cross-references, numbering paragraphs, and adding editorial notes constitutes original literary work deserving of copyright protection. The standard is neither the extreme "sweat of the brow" doctrine nor the high threshold of novelty, but a middle path requiring some minimal creative spark.