Compulsory Licence for Benefit of Disabled :

Section 31B (1) provides that any person working for the benefit of persons with disability on a profit basis or for business may apply to the Copyright Board in prescribed manner for a compulsory licence to publish any work in which copyright subsists for the benefit of such persons, in a case to which clause (zb) of sub-section (1) of Section 52 does not apply and the Copyright Board shall dispose of such application as expeditiously as possible and endeavour shall be made to dispose of such application within a period of two months from the date of receipt of the application.

The Copyright Board may on receipt of an application inquire, or direct such inquiry as it considers necessary to establish the credentials of the applicant and satisfy itself that the application has been made in good faith and a compulsory licence needs to be issued to make the work available to the disabled, it may direct the Registrar of Copyrights to grant to the applicant such a licence to publish the work.

It may be noted that clause (zb) of sub-section (1) of Section 52 provides that the adaptation, reproduction, issue of copies or communication to the public of any work in any accessible format, by—

(i) any person to facilitate persons with disability to access to works including sharing with any person with disability of such accessible format for private or personal use, educational purpose or research; or

(ii) any organisation working for the benefit of the persons with disabilities in case the normal format prevents the enjoyment of such works by such persons:

However, the copies of the works in such accessible format are made available to the persons with disabilities on a non-profit basis but to recover only the cost of production and the organization ensure that the copies of works in such accessible format are used only by persons with disabilities and takes reasonable steps to prevent its entry into ordinary channels of business.

It may be noted that “any organization” includes and organization registered under Section 12A of the Income-tax Act, 1961 and working for the benefit of persons with disability or recognized under Chapter X of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection or Rights and full Participation) Act, 1995 or receiving grants from the government for facilitating access to persons with disabilities or an educational institution or library or archives recognized by the Government.”